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Hello all,

I am getting another 10 gallon tank from my friend. I want to breed OTTOS!!!!YAY...How do i sex these guys?Any info on fry care will be greatly appreciated. The tank will be havily planted, with flourescent lights.IFf for any reason Ottos aren't going to work, i think i will make a 3 guppy,4 otto tank. One male and two females, with another tank to eat weaker/less colorful babies.Ummmm... I hope I am not forgetting anything


Thamk you for your time.

It's been a while since I've read articles about otto breeding, but what I do remember is that it is very difficult to breed ottos. As far as sexing goes, if I remember correctly, females are larger. Anyhow, most information you need you should be able to find by doing a google search. Sorry I'm not much of a help

You may want to look around here for Cali's article on otto breeding or keeping... he wrote some big thing on ottos, if I remember correctly...not sure on that...

I'd personally reccomend a larger tank if you want to breed ottos, maybe try a 30+ gal tank. You'll probably want to start with a large school (10-30 individuals), and let them do whatever and however they do what they do

You're on the right track with the heavily planted idea, as they prefer low nitrates and good water quality, and also the munchies and the hiding places that the plants provide.

That's about all I know on otto breeding (I know it's next to nothing ), but it's supposed to be really hard to do, and that's why they're all wild caught...

Good luck to ya

Thanks! I would like to say google helped, but i can' seem to find a straight answer about these guys.But i think my two ottos are trying to mate, or just wanna be trying to eat algea off each other. Any body seen otto babies or eggs? All i know is they need plants to mate, multiple females and males, and thats about it.I wish I could turn my Current 10 gallon tank into a otto tank.My only problem is that... when I first bought my 10 gallon tank i bought fish at random..it ended up with 2 neons a black skirt tetra, alot of schooling fishys... and I don't know what to do with them.


Well, thank you for reading.
(i have tried google and search on this site)

Sadly, my Otocinclus article has temporarily done a disappearing act while Adam continues building the latest incarnation of the FishProfiles site. Hopefully it will return in due course, but in the meantime, here are some hints and tips that might result in an Otocinclus spawn.

One. Start cultivating algae. The method that I described in the article as the "Otocinclus Pet Rock" method works fine. Line up some jars by a windowsill, pop in some small items (pieces of bogwood, rocks, even garish plastic aquarium ornaments will suffice if you have nothing else to hand!) and add some old aquarium water to the jars when you do a water change and gravel vac. Sit back and wait until the objects in the jars have a nice coating of green fur. Pull one or two out and place in the tank with your Otocinclus and watch them greedily hoover the objects clean. Keep several jars handy for the purpose (and a decent collection of small objects) so that when the fishes have eaten the algae off one object, it can be popped back in the jars and you can select another in a cycle - a kind of 'crop rotation' if you like.

Two. Plant something like Hygrophyla or Ludwigia in the aquarium. The venerable Innes Book contains the following paragraph on page 232, the page on which Otocinclus affinis is described:

Unusual breeding habits have been described, which the author cannot vouch for, but which he has no reason to doubt. After some love-chasings, the female in an upside down position clasps the underside of a leaf, such as Ludwigia, with her ventral fins, and presses a single egg in contact with it. The male quickly follows, and with the same kind of movement, fertilises it. Only one egg is placed on a leaf. They hatch in a few days.

Check out the leaf shape of Ludwigia and Hygrophyla, and see the kind of plants that these fishes reputedly like as egg depsition sites. if either of those plants are unavailable to you, find a plant with a similar structure that IS available, and try that. Take care not to choose a plant species that is one of the "high maintenance" ones that requires "nuclear bomb flare" levels of lighting and large-scale intervention with fertilisers and CO2, because Otocinclus like their shade.

Three. Increase the current flow in the aquarum. If you're using a powerhead, for example, to drive an undergravel filter, try increasing the flow a notch.

Four. Otocinclus have been documented as liking frequent water changes ever since the old Innes days. to get them to breed, you might have to resort to twice weekly water changes (which your other fishes will appreciate too!).

Five. Try dropping in some live Bloodworms. Scatter them around so that all of your fishes get a chance to eat them. The reason I offer this seemingly odd piece of advice for a fish species regarded as herbivorous is this - I have seen my Otocinclus munch on live Bloodworm before today, and have a photograph of one doing just that! I've characterised Otocinclus as being not exclusively herbivorous on the basis of this - it may be more accurate to describe them as primarily herbivorous aufwuchs grazers that will add small organisms from the algal mats to their diet.

Six. Do you have bogwood among your aquarium furnishings? It's possible, given the way my Otocinclus graze algal fur from bogwood, that a small amount of wood may be beneficial to them. If you DO use bogwood furnishings, make sure that the wood is a relatively 'soft' wood of the kind that would be used for feeding known wood-feeding Panaque Plecs, for example. Choose your wood with care.

Seven. Once you have nice, well fed, well conditioned Otocinclus, try raising the aquarium temperature slowly to 27°C for 3 days or so, then let the aquarium drop down to 24°C. If they show ANY signs of engaging in what looks like mating behaviour, make a careful note at what temperature they do this. They may do so after the temperature rise, or may do so after the cooling period. Since reports of successful Otocinclus spawns are so few and far between, this is an area that requires experimentation.

One problem that you will face is that the Innes book quote suggests that mating behaviour will not be that obvious to the untrained eye, and so you'll have to watch them very closely to determine if they are mating. Which, in an aquarium with the kind of planting that they like, is a LOT easier said than done, given how easily they can hide in even modest foliage. In my Panda Fun Palace, my Otocinclus have a veritable underwater rainforest to hide in, so if they mated in there, the chance of me seeing this is next to zero at the moment!

Hope this little lot proves helpful!

****** UPDATE *******

FRENCH AQUARIST REPORTS SUCCESSFUL SPAWNING AND DESCRIBES IT IN SOME DETAIL ... LINK FOLLOWS ...

Otocinclus Spawning

Enjoy!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Otocinclus, as with all other loricariids, are most likely to spawn when power fed, shortly followed by a prolonged wet-dry cycle.

I've had my ottos breed in my tanks, and I've whitnessed their little dance, and as has already been said, they really just need tons of algae to feed on, nice clean water, and enough plants to make them feel secure. In fact, I have one female now that appears full of eggs (which is the only thing that makes me think she's female, since I otherwise can't tell the difference). They do a chase back and forth across parts of the tank, and then find a particualr plant to zip around, and the male will sort of curl around the female when she stops, basically turning his body into a horseshoe shape, and then she'll shake him off and they'll start again. I havn't seen any eggs yet, either.
I think the major thing with the fry is to make sure they have plenty to eat. Ottos are voracious foragers and eat constantly, so when you suddenly have more of them, the available algae disappears very very quickly, and fry will starve to death quite easily (which seems to be what happens when my ottos spawn, as the fry I've seen don't seem to survive more than 4-6 weeks). Cultivating green algae on rocks is absolutely the best thing you can do for them. Otherwise, they are pretty much just miniature versions of the adults and will eat what they eat.

Here are some pictures I tried to take of my last batch of otto fry:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~illustrae/Aquaria/pictures/pict0031.html
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~illustrae/Aquaria/pictures/pict0033.html

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Otocinclus, as with all other loricariids, are most likely to spawn when power fed, shortly followed by a prolonged wet-dry cycle.

Wet-dry cycle? Explain!

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Simulates dry-wet season cycle. First thing's first; tune down the filters, let the water level drop, and don't make any water changes for about three weeks. Then, change 50 percent of the remaining water with cold RO (similar in nature to callichthyid spawns), turn down the heater, start a power feeding regime, and turn up the current. After a cycle or two, something's bound to happen.

Ahhhh .... * Light bulb over head moment *

Thanks for clearing that up ... I had a feeling it might have something to do with wet and dry seasons, but I needed some details to make sure (SW has a 'wet/dry' filter - totaly different concept, but confusingly similar terminology). I also presume that by 'power feeding' in the case of Loricariids, you mean providing them with a surplus of food round the clock so that they can eat as much as they want whenever they want?

So, if I set up a species aquarium and stock it with, say, 8 Otocinclus, simulating this cycle as described above could result in a spawn? Hmm ... must give this a try!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002