FishProfiles.com Message Forums

My otocinclus have laid eggs twice. I'm still not sure if I have any fry but the 2nd eggs have yet to hatch.
water parameters are
ph 8.4
ammonia/nitrite 0
nitrates <25
gh 15

Doesn't sound like good oto water to me lol
I've been trying to get my ph a little lower so I started doing frequent water changes with peat moss water. I also moved in some plants and rocks with lots of algae. 3 days later I had 10 oto eggs on my air tubing. We also had lots of bad storms those 3 days but I don't know if that matters.
I decided my water was too dark colored and the carbon just couldn't take it all out even with 3 cartridges in 2 filters. I started lots of water changes again with clear water. Moved in more food for the otos because they'd eaten it all. We had a storm that night and the next day I found 12 oto eggs on the plants.

The ph only went down .4 when I changed with peat water and then back up again over several days. I'll try it again this spring but after 4 water changes I could barely see in my tank. Hopefully this information will help anyone else who wants to try spawning otos.

Congratulations! Most people never even get them to spawn, so you're halfway ahead of the pack right there!

The storms are almost certainly a large part of the trigger, it's very common to see difficult species spontaneously lay eggs with massive barometric drops of over half an inch in the mercury. A simultaneous large influx of fresh water (i.e., massive water change) is about a 90% guarantee with Corydoras, and Otocinclus isn't that distant a relative.

Must be because of the weather this year, this is the third message here today that I've had to bring up the atmospheric pressure as spawning trigger.

[span class="edited"][Edited by MasterKillieKeeper 2004-08-21 16:11][/span]

That's very interesting about the barometric pressure. I wish there was some sort of device where we could control it!