Sliceofnature

That rainbow shiner is beautiful. 🌈

Looks like a pond snail. I had one come in on a plant too and made the mistake of letting it grow to adulthood. Next thing i knew i had hundreds in a small tank that had a lot of driftwood. I actually ended up tearing that tank down and starting over from scratch... 🙈

Putting veggie slices on a suction cup clip has worked well for me. It seems to be a little easier for them to transition to because its a very natural way for them to eat. I do thick peels of zuchini, cucumber, squash, sweet potato, spinach(basically whatever i have around) and microwave the piece in water for 30 seconds. Ill leave it in for a day or 2. Do this and i guarantee youll have fat bellied oto’s.

They can certainly be a pain to catch and move from tank to tank. And in my experience it seems to noticeably stress them out more than your average midwater swimming fishies so i dont recommend that. Im not sure what you could do to protect the fry other then have a lot of mulm/plants/cover but really if you want to breed them my advice would be to set them up in their own separate tank To breed and raise up the fry. As far as feeding the fry its very easy they eat the same thing their parents do so if youve got auwfuchs, algae, veggies, sinking pellets etc available theyll be happy.

Thanks for clearing that up

When i was a kid we had a common pleco that i just knew as a sucker fish. I was told that they just ate algae so i never fed him for years in a 20 gallon tank... He used to eat my snails by sucking them right out of the shell, now i know its because the poor thing was starving.

I fell in love with these blue eyed rainbows recently and have been planning to pick up a trio (2m/1f) soon to keep in a 15 gal tank. I was doing some more research today and found that a couple of sites were recommending keeping large groups of 8-10 or more and other sites make no mention of this. If anyone has experience with these please let me know your thoughts on this.

Looks like youre right. They had been breeding lately but i had never seen that weird swimming behavior before. Found these later today.

Little update, The dwarf aquarium lilly Is thriving now.Also noticed this guy/gal has made a home in the pond plants. Can you spot him?

A pair of my corys have been doing this odd little dance all morning where they swim vertically and even upside down around eachother. Have any of you seen this behavior in your corys? And does anyone know if it has anything to do with courtship or mating? i got a short video here: Corys Dancing Vid

Mine will not eat algae wafers but they do love zuchini, sweet potato, cucumber, shrimp pellets and meaty bottom feeder pellets. That being said they are almost always wild caught and it took mine a long time to figure out they could eat those things. In the meantime they had a huge amount of algae to graze on. If your tank doesnt have the algae and awfuchs for them to graze on then maybe ottos just arent a good fit for that tank.

Would you mind posting a link for where you purchased this? thanks in advance!

Almost forgot, the tank is actually from petsmart. It just happen to fit this little corner desk i had made perfectly so i couldnt help myself

I love this tank! Its very Indiana Jones! You definitely have plenty of plants and cover and the statue is a nice piece for them to graze on. You may want to consider making sure there is some space at ground level for them move around. Maybe add a flat-ish rock/s on the ground for them to chill on? It certainly looks like it could work to me.

Its 117* here today and the pond still hasnt gotten above 82* at its peak which is quite a relief. I will continue monitoring it regularly. Hopefully the water temp doesnt continue to creep up in the coming days. Im very impressed thus far with how consistent temperatures have stayed for such small body of water. The Danios are looking fat and happy. The adult hillstream loach pair has also been vacationing in the pond. I havent seen much of them but i can tell theyve been eating well based on the complete destruction of algae in the pond. https://youtu.be/A3fWqqkaPjY The veggies are also fairing quite well i think considering the hellish temps. The first peppers have started to appear which is very exciting.

Wow! That is abrupt! I guess you really have to keep your eye on the weather forecast out there huh. This is my first year with a mini pond but Its 117* in los angeles today so i have the opposite temps to worry about.

Mine have seemed happier in that 10g than they were in the previous 15 gal that had large rocks but a lot more open space. ive used the vertical space in that tank to create a lot of nooks and spots for them everywhere. I sortve understand why people recommend tanks that large for them but i also think there are more factors to consider. They can be territorial, more so as they age as well. They cant hurt other tank mates but may bully them away from food, they can get pretty excited around feeding time. Males will chase a female constantly if she doesnt have places to hide and break line of sight. Theyre also very fast which is why i think people recommend larger tanks but they really only swim around in short bursts. Maybe the biggest factor is tank mates. They can get stressed and basically just seem annoyed by fast moving tank mates that dont give them space. After a while my full grown danios seemed like they were driving them nuts so my male hillie responded by regularly trying to intimidate them which of course they ignored haha. I personally think that a properly set up 20 gal would be plenty of space for 3 of them and some tank mates. After having a single male for a while and seeing the change in behavior after introducing a female i do not think they should be kept singly which is why id recommend at least a 20gal. Ive observed the type of spaces they like and tried to create plenty for them when setting up my 10g and it is not their forever home. They love spots that they just squeeze into between the glass and rocks or plants. They need places where they can go and be totally alone as well as some room to graze and be social and giving them some water flow to play in is very beneficial. Basically whether theyre in a 10 or a 55 they still need a specific set up and their space so dont plan on stocking aggressively.

@Daniel great topic, great video.

Ive found its more challenging but still possible to keep them with high flow. I have a ton of water movement in my fluval flex tank and water lettuce is still doing well. The smaller plants like frogbit just make a mess until they die off from tumbling in the water constantly but ive found that larger pieces of water lettuce are able to stay afloat and just swirl around in the tank. The roots do get damaged tho and it does cause a little bit of a mess but its worth the trade off for me so far.

I wanted to mention that if youre trying to lower nitrates i highly recommend you add some floating plants like some water lettuce/frogbit. Ive added both of those recently and once they were established my nitrates have stayed significantly lower. They seem to consume nitrates more voraciously than my other aquatic plants.

Looking forward to seeing what you pick. Ive got some leopard longfin danios in my whiskey barrel pond right now. Those could work for you too and the long fins look great from the top.

PEA PUFFER. Coolest 5 gallon ever

Please excuse the mulm. These are the only photos i had. Heres my 10g corner desk tank. Im very limited on space so i squeezed a tank into the only spot i had.

I did a little bit of testing In my tanks and my fish/snails/ghost shrimp seemed unaffected/healthy even into the 80-100ppm range. I ran 40 ppm average for a few months In another tank and found my plants and fish to be very happy but neo caridinia shrimp however slowly died off. I found that my blue velvet shrImp are more sensitive to nitrates, the rest of the inhabitants were happy and breeding. Like @KBOzzie59 said it depends. Every living thing in your tank will have its own preferences so the only way to know is to test, watch and take notes.

Im stoked that your luck has turned back around and things are looking up again. I too have made the mistake of making things worse by trying to improve them. Now i try to remind myself, If it aint broke dont fix it. Looking forward to seeing your progress!