FishProfiles.com Message Forums

I found one of my Oto next to my canister intake pipe. I can see that he's still breathing but can't seem to move. I've moved him to another place and he seems to be non-moving still. My other 5 Otos appear to be doing just fine. They all have pot-bellies , so enough food shouldn't be a factor. Water test were Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 20, and pH 6.9. That too isn't a problem.

Oh well. I guess an Oto lost shouldn't be unforseen.

Last edited by sly at 24-Sep-2004 16:11

Are they new?

Yeah, the little guy is a goner. He past away a couple hours ago.

I got the Otos about 3 weeks ago, so they are fairly recent addition to my tank. I hope my other 5 will fare better.

I to just lost 1 otto, now I only have 4. They have been in my tank for about 7 or 8 months. The rest are fine so maybe it was just an isolated incident, I hope.

It is not rare to lose ottos when you first get them. I've heard a saying that if they survive the first month, they will probably last a lifetime. This is because they are very sensitive to water quality and changes in their environment. In other words they dont like being moved from LFS water to your water, which is why you should acclimatise them for about 2 hours. Once they are fully acclimatised they will usually be fine.

Check it out- http://profile.myspace.com/bigtone85

Even if you successfully acclimatise them, Otocinclus have a habit of going MIA. If you remove powerheads from UGF lift tubes for maintenance, cap the tubes, otherwise Otocinclus are apt to go exploring down the tubes, with gruesome results. Basically, if you give them a nice new cave of any sort to explore, they're like three year old children - boundless curiosity and no sense of danger.

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Those little rascals! I love it when they swim up & down or across the front glass in groups.

Mostly FYI.. there are some tips here about how to help them recover from their ordeals and keep them alive. They're notorious for dropping dead within a few days or weeks after getting home.

http://www.otocinclus.com/newoto.html

In a nutshell.. If you've ever tried catching them, you know how fast they are. Now imagine doing this in a river with rocks, snagging wood etc. The belief is that the people catching them in the wild dump cyanide in the water upstream to temporarily paralyze them to enable them to be caught easily and in large numbers. This causes internal organ damage. They've been poisoned enough to cause serious problems but not quite enough to kill them.

Then on top of that, they're shipped. Remember that they only eat soft algae. And then they sit in store tanks and are rarely fed a suitable diet. By the time you buy them, they're almost starving to death. Then they get home, get hit with another new tank, and usually there isn't enough algae to feed on for a few weeks.

Sometimes when they are so desperate they'll suck the body slime off another fish as a last resort. This is sometimes called a "Killer Otto" because it often leads to the victim fish getting an infection and dying. You can hardly blame them at this point. Other algae eaters will do this by choice when they grow larger, but ottos will only do this out of desperation.

For whatever reason, tank bred/raised ottos live much longer than wild caught ones.

I feed give mine algae wafers and zucchini slices every now and then to make sure they're ok.