What do I do with extra Otocinclus?  5/30/07
I have a 5 gal. Eclipse Corner Tank on my desk at work. There were 2 Betta's (with a divider) in it, but when I added 3 Oto's from PetSmart soon after the Betta's died of tail/fin rot. I moved them to separate bowls, and treated them but they died. I figured it was the addition of the Oto's so I expected them to die as well. That didn't happen. They cleaned my tank of all algae, and I feared they would have nothing to eat because it seems they won't eat the algae flakes. So, I went to my buddy's Cichlid tank and traded all the ornaments (no, I don't know if this was a smart thing to do or not, but I did it anyway). It seemed, that this brought new life to the Oto's, as very soon after I spotted little white things on the front of the tank. When I realized it was fry, I shut off the filter. I counted about 12 fry stuck the glass. I turned to the internet for advice and found little. I put a baby sock rubber banded over the filter intake and turned that back on. Added an air pump for them. I fed them boiled spinach leaves. Well, a spinach leaf from a coworkers salad stuffed in a cup of hot water. They ate little holes in that overnight. I do a 50% water change weekly, and slowly suck out the leftover food every few days to keep the substrate somewhat clean. Now I keep exchanging plants with my buddy's Cichlid tank for food and they clean it overnight. There are now 4 or 5 baby's left and they are half the size of the adults and seem to be doing fine. My question is, what can I do with these extra Oto's? Can they go in the Cichlid tank? Isn't that too much hardness for a Cichlid? Or can I support 7 to 8 Oto's in a 5 gal tank? PetSmart told me that they stock the same sex in the same tank and sell them that way so this wouldn't happen. Well they screwed up and now I have these new guy's. What do people do with their new fish when they didn't mean or even know they would spawn?
<Wow. This is quite an amazing tale! On the one hand, a 5 gallon tank is really too small for Otocinclus. As a group, Otocinclus are considered "delicate" because they need good water quality and lots of oxygen. In most community tanks, they tend to be short lived. But yours are doing well, so well done! Anyway, as to where to put the Otocinclus. I personally wouldn't mix them with anything other than, perhaps, South American or West African dwarf cichlids. The problems are multiple. Firstly, yes, they will not do well in Lake Malawi/Lake Tanganyika type aquaria. Such hard and alkaline water conditions will not suit them at all. Secondly, when kept with slow moving things like angelfish and discus they tend to suck the sides of the bigger fish, scraping off the mucous. I've seen this in my own tanks, with the Otocinclus rasping away on large gobies, creating nasty blisters. Aggressive fish like convict cichlids will simply hammer them to death. So ideally, give them to someone with a peaceful community of other small fish such as barbs and tetras. PetSmart cannot possibly sex Otocinclus so their advice there was nonsense. In fact, breeding Otocinclus is quite uncommon, so you've actually done rather well.>
Tom
<Cheers, Neale>

Otocinclus <maybe Danio> fry, fdg.   6/30/07
About a week ago, maybe less, I had my husband remove a few plants that weren't looking so hot from one of our aquariums. He thought something along the lines of putting them in a bucket and seeing if they would look any better (It couldn't hurt)
<Ahh... a good friend grows such plants almost year-round outdoors here in San Diego... spectacular results>
So they were outside in a bucket...some morning sun, nothing too harsh. Tonight he was going to put the plants back in the tank and dump the bucket... being always worried about Cyanobacteria and such I bent down and peered real good at them, and noticed a tiny movement. We have some incredibly tiny fry. I have never seen any fry this small... the only breeding fish I have are angels and guppies I guess. But the tank these plants came from had: angels, serpae tetras, Columbian tetras, neon tetras, zebra Danios, Otocinclus cats and a pair of Cory cats.
<I see...>
After looking at someone's video of fry, it looks like they may be Oto fry... very very tiny, almost invisible from the side.
So they are in the hospital tank now, along with the plants from the bucket and in the water that was in the bucket... we had heavy rains today and the bucket overflowed. We have about 20 fry left. What should I try to feed them.
<"Infusoria" would be ideal... see the Net re... But a pre-made commercial food prep. is the only thing practical here. See the Net, your LFS re such... "tube food"...>
I thought of rotifers since they are tinier than baby brine shrimp, but if they are Otos it would seem that wouldn't work at all. I also have a package of Hikari first bites that is as fine as talcum powder and contains many things, among them Spirulina, milt meal, along with some krill meal and such.
<The liquid "tube food"... egg-yolk based...>
I'd hate to see them die, especially after the miracle of even seeing them to begin with.
Any ideas? If I put a hulled pea in there would they nibble on that? The plants have a little algae on them as well but the fry are so darned tiny...
Julie
<Might be the Danios otherwise... Oh, and congrats! Bob Fenner>