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is it hard? i have at least 1 female and 4 males, the female is full of eggs, what do i have to do to have them breed? anything special? how hard r they?

How are you sure she is full of eggs and not merely well fed? Ottos are amongst the most diffcult loricariids to breed with intention. That is to say, if you're trying to trigger them to breed, it will be quite difficult. Most otto spawns are random occurences in large, planted tanks, and the eggs are rarely, if ever, seen; the fry just seem to pop out of nowhere. They do need some protein for conditioning, but too much will kill them.

i can see the eggs inside her i can count them if you like (not ment to rude btw) im getting a 75 gallon very soon (i hope) and im going to try and plant it heavly with low light plants, have lots of drift wood, and a bit of rock work, in the tank will be seveal pairs of rams, a few female bettas, 1 male betta (maybe), some threadfins, corys, and im still thinking if i should sell the botia modesta, i htink i killed a male betta, but i havent seen any aggressivness from him, but i dont think he will fit in the 75, do you think he will? what do you think? i have till tuesday to decide

If they really are eggs (they should be all but impossible to see-the pictures of eggbound otos that I have seen do not distinguish themselves from indivduals that are overly fed), then I would suggest moving them to the larger tank, plant it well, and leave the guys to do their own business.


EDIT: I am personally very fond of the modesta; they are beautiful fish, but can indeed be a bit aggressive. I would not keep it with ottos that you plan on breeding. Cryptocorne and long, thin leaved sword and anubias are ideal spawning surfaces for them.

Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 05-Aug-2005 07:57

the tank they r in is heavly planted with fake plants, and it real;y doesnt lok like food they r round and a light color she has been fat like htis for quite some time, this is just the first time i looked

Usually otos that look beyond the fat of just being full are ill. If the stomach is very large and lumpy then you probably have a sick oto. Eggs should not be visible unless something is seriously wrong.
Spawning of my otos involved lots of live plants, a bit of peat moss, and tons of water changes. I was doing daily 25% water changes with peat softened water when they laid 10 eggs on the air tubing. Then I did several water changes after the first set of eggs dissapeared and they laid again. The 2nd set of water changes though was with non peat softened water which actually hardened my already 7.6 ph water up to 8.0. Ph doesn't seem to be overly important in spawning otos. They do need a big crop of algae. Algae wafers, live foods, most other sinking fish foods, or vegetables are good supplements but otos really won't do well without live fresh algae. Especially brown algae. They haven't spawned since my brown algae was taken over by spot and hair algae. I also don't have much of the green algae left either. Males and females are almost impossible to tell apart so you usually need a good sized group to make sure you get at least one of each.

well, she isnt sick shes been fat for a while, like months and shes not lumpy, just, full

Healthy otoshttp://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/loricari/otocincl/107_5.php
http://www.cir.roma.it/articoli/loric021.jpg

sick oto
http://www.otocinclus.com/images/fatoto1.jpg

Healthy otos can also perch neatly on leaves or anything else
http://fazerty.free.fr/imageslibre/imageslisting/13otocinclus.jpg

When they are sick their swollen belly gets in the way of perching or hanging on glass and they sort of rock back and forth trying to balance. If the oto has dots or lumps that look like eggs that would not be normal.


Last edited by sham at 07-Aug-2005 01:56

i can see the orangyness in the healthy otto too

and no, she doesnt have the lumpyness shown by the sick ottos, and she only rocks on the gravel, because at that time she is just sittingthere, not holding in, and i have natural gravel, so its un even (the gravel is all diff sizes)but when she holds on with her mouth she just goes along sucking on the glass, i did have brown algae in that tank, but hey ate it all up, im trying to grow it in my tanks again, i had it horrible in the basement and they cleaned in a week so i moved 2 tanks infront of the windows to get the algae to grow, is there a way to grow brown, on a piece of glass, or a plant? what can i add to the water to make it grow? they r eating shrimp pellets for now, because i recently ran out of wafers, but im trying to get down to get some