xXInkedPhoenixX

OTOCINCLUS COCAMA (TIGER/ZEBRA, WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT): The Cocama Hotel So over my days off I got a phone call from the LFS- of course I answered the call. "Hi, this is Mike from LFS, you're on our list about the Zebra Otos" This was Wednesday afternoon. I said yes that's me. He told me they got 10 and would I want to come in today or should he acclimate them and I come in another time? I said I'll be there tomorrow! Thursday morning at 11 (their opening time) I walked in. Mike was on the phone so I spoke with another employee who didn't know where they were. I was ok with that- I am not in a hurry and I like looking. I did find them eventually in with some other kind of middle dweller I don't remember. The wet erase marker on the aquarium said "HOLD ALL" (so cool!!). I never take pictures as I'm just so wrapped up in the present- which is ok with me- not so much when you're journalling. Anyhow- there were my future fishies and they looked pretty good. I found it funny they kept correcting me when I'd say Tiger Otos (they apparently like Zebra better, they'd say "oh the Zebra Otos"- I didn't bother saying they go by both). I told them I'll take them all. The gal helping me took a while to catch them (they're hard to catch, even though they are 3x the size of a regular Oto they are just as quick/wiley). Guy at the counter said I'll have Mike ring you up. We had chatted a little bit about what I'm trying to do and that I'd already got Vittatus to breed. They (meaning all the employees when I mention it) tell me they've never heard of anyone doing this. He also said thanks for answering the phone (and not letting it go to voicemail was the hint I think)- I said of course, the shop is in my phone so I didn't miss the call, I was very excited about the prospect. He then just flat offered to give me a discount on them (they last sold them to me for $19.99) and said I'll sell them to you for $15/ea. Wow. How nice. Really didn't expect that and totally prepared for the cost. Anyhow the plan was since the Accidental Nursery was no longer needed because I released the babies I did have (8 total in 2 different tanks). Now it has been temporarily dubbed the Cocama Hotel- it's a 5.5 gallon glass tank with plants, wood and substrate. Though it's been running and cycled- I doubled down when I got home I switched out a sponge filter from the Parent Tank while they temp acclimated. This tank is my coldest tank and I had a "preset" heater for smaller tanks- I let it run a while even after I released the Otos and the temp reached over 80 degrees despite the "78" set temp. So before I went to bed I set up a Pymeter I'd gotten for my heater backups. I don't want them in too warm of water as they'll need to get used to a bit cooler waters in my unheated tanks and of course I have 0 trust in heaters not going wonky on me. I also borrowed the Accidental Tank's food bowl as anything I had that could contain the food was too big for this tank and even this bowl is a little bigger than I'd like since I don't want anyone squeezing between things. So clear glass food bowls are on order for this tank. I'm actually really happy with the glass canister lid I'm using in the Accidental tank....it may stay....haha. The pics I got aren't great- there's lots of glare because it's close to windows despite my having closed blinds, and I do have a short google video of their release (sorry no youtube vids for me). The short video of the release: https://photos.app.goo.gl/wvMKzrmiBGncTmRP7 (special shout out to @Fish Folk....in this video we'll see the use of a cell phone tripod 😉 ) This morning I treated the tank with Expel P because they are wild caught (confirmed with LFS). I thought this would be a better choice than Paracleanse as it's only a 24 hour treatment. I don't want to over expose them to meds if I can help it. After this treatment I'm hoping not to medicate more. They look very good so far. I can't see all 10 at once and they blend very well in the dark tank. I'm keeping it dark for the meds but I also have a very weak light on the tank at the moment (a light is also on order with the glass feeding dishes). OK SOOO...... My plan: I've given this a lot of thought. I don't really want to add 10 more fish to the Accidental Tank- though I'm sure I can manage it- it's not ideal. My plan is thus: I'm going to be moving the Harlequins from my Parent Tank (original tank and original occupants of which there are 10) to my Angry Man tank- only occupants there being my 10 Black Neons and 3 Nerites with bladder snails. This will happen in the next week or two so I can see how the 2 species get along. I'm hoping all will be well with them because I'm not sure yet what to do if it doesn't go well. Really there is no reason why it shouldn't both species are relatively shy and keep to themselves. The only reason I worry a little is that neither have had to contend with another middle dweller species since I got them. I'm hoping I'll be surprised and they will actually seem to enjoy the company of other fish sharing the space. I will then when QT is up add the 3 Vitattus to the Parent Tank (for genetic diversity- I will get a few more to QT after that for the Accidental Tank- same purposes), then after that the Tiger Otos (all 10) will be released into the Parent Tank. I may even at some point catch the other 5 in the Accidental tank- and add them as well. But only after I'm sure the tank is stable after each movement/release. This is in hopes to get them to spawn. 🤞🤞

Welcome to the forum!

Probably got the advice on youtube likely from at least a couple/few channels- HAVE A FISH FIRST AID KIT- at least some basic medications and salt, a QT if you can (I didn't but the whole tank was sick anyway) and floating breeder box (has saved me many, many times). This was something I already did years ago when I kept "pocket pets" (rats and hamsters) but it makes the same sense with fish as when small animals go downhill they go downhill FAST!! Don't wait until your fish are sick to get medication. I'm glad I had this before fish were in my tank. Because when they DID get sick shortly after I got them (ich) I was TOTALLY prepared. It makes a stressful situtaion a WHOLE lot easier.

15 days later, still only 1 fry, coloring up nicely, just swims out in the open all the time. Guess they know they won't be eaten at this point! (Tank is on my kitchen counter, so yes, there is an apple in the picture 🙃)

...and the shrimp go on about their business....

You did it! Keep going! Almost there! The day you see NitrAtes you'll be very happy!

Bamboo pots and sake cups! 🙃

I DO get the impression from what I see here and other sites that they benefit from a bit of cover- it appears they like the option of being able to hide if they feel threatened which seems to make them just a little bolder when they know they have somewhere to go. I don't think that's unusual of any fish though. My CPDs, Harlequins and Black Neons dive for cover every time I pass their tanks which is a LOT since it's in a high traffic area of my kitchen. But if I sit there and watch they will eventually come out and move around.

Hi, welcome to the forum. Throwing a hat into the ring...I've strayed away from the idea of "centerpiece" fish. As some have mentioned they can be tricky as things like Bettas can be aggressive or even be bullied with long fins (and frankly need higher temps and humidity than most community fish). Or Gouramis- some have high rates of disease/illness. Or you could pick one that eats your shrimp! For me is that I'd get too attached to a single fish- you tend to pay more attention to them and for me it was bettas, they'd die too soon. So I don't keep them anymore. So, what I ended up doing was the idea of a Guppy or Endler group. 4-6 of either or both (I did both!) of those (males) in a 20 gallon tank would be low bioload and ACTION PACKED. I highly recommend!

I watched your video and it is hard to tell but I think the dark/light is just in how it's attached to your glass. It almost seemed like your active one was checking on the inactive one. 😞 If you get really desperate you can try to blanch a leaf of spinach or slice of blanched zucchini and place little one down on it. There's a chance they'll mow on that. My nerites can sometimes be found on the sliced cucumber I put in tanks from time to time but it's not their go to- who knows you might have better luck than me!

Aww poor thing. I'm not sure but i'm wondering if the dark spots are an indication of where they are just attached to the glass. It kinda looks that way for your other one. There is not much we can do for our snail friends as far as diagnosing and fixing issues- other than water parameters. If there's no nitrite/ammonia and there are some decent minerals/hardness for them there's not much more typcially we can do. (besides food availability beyond water quality) Now, this snail is a recent aquisition- they will take siestas- I'll not see my Olive Nerite sometimes for days. Others might hang out in the same place for long periods of time. Usually they've done this because of the things mentioned above (water parameters not right OR because you recently got them this one is getting used to YOUR parameters). Sometimes its because they run out of food OR seemingly have overeaten. What I can say is that I've never seen a dead snail hang on to the glass- so the fact that they're hanging there is a positive. Sometimes when we get new snails they fail to thrive in their new environment or were already not feeling so hot before you got them. I got 9 Horned Nerites shipped to me recently. Some were DOA. Only 3 ultimately made it and more recently I've not seen all 3 at once only 2 so.... This is one of the bummer things about snails. Other than the general care and making sure they have food there's not much info in the aquarium world out there that would help us identify problems.

@Fish Folk is that a Bolivian in pic 2??

Welcome to the forum

@Torrey is right. At first most of us, including myself go on attack. I didn't think I wanted them either- and I still don't In a couple of my tanks (which thankfully never got them) but I can't imagine my aquarium life without them now. ....someone who started out squishing them, actually regretting it- and now I look out for them

I've been using them more recently and I have to say, unless you have something like shrimp that will eat the decaying leaves I'd recommend making a tea for tanks. 1 leaf can go a very long way. I've been boiling 1 in my stockpot and filling a couple of inches of the tea in my 1 gallon water change jugs then filling up the rest of the way with tap and treating. It's not as tinted as it could be but I'm sure the properties of the leaf are still there (just like those of us who use teabags and Rooibos)- and there is no detrius/decay to worry about.

They certainly can become an issue but it's usually an indicator of something WE are doing. They can be well controlled in tanks that are decently balanced and aren't overfed. Likelyhood is they probably have already laid eggs in your tank. 🙃 (ditto what @Guppysnail says)

Ah cool! If nothing happens this time maybe next!! Wonder if it matters if it blooms before hitting the air. (don't google image search emersed anubias, it'll ruin it)

@Streetwise it would be very cool to see what happens with it if you did. I planted one via a suction cup halfway up my 20 tall's back wall but even that did not get it to reach the surface.

Looks like an Anubias flower. Mine have never reached the surface but I'm pretty sure that's all she wrote for the bloom.

@tzahroxi I'm sorry you are going through this but it can take several weeks to fight an outbreak like yours with double illnesses going on. Ich can be stubborn and understanding the lifecycle of the ich helps make it seem not quite as hopeless. Understand all the scabs you see are eggs laid and protected by the scab, they'll fall out as eggs- hundreds (protected) and fall into your substrate, then depending on temperature and conditions of your tank hundreds of the Ich come out to find your fish again and do it all over....now THIS is the ONLY time they are vunerable to the medication. So just think about that. With tanks in the 70s this takes days for the vunerable part to happen and you don't want to raise the temp if you are also battling Epystilus which can spread FASTER in higher temps. Think about the hundreds upon hundreds of little Ich you are battling. This isn't easy, but it's possible- you can't give up. So what do you do? Water change, dose meds, water change, dose meds, water change, dose meds. I've used API Super Ick on my Otos- it works fine for them so as far as the pleco they should be ok- however if you are indeed concerned about your inverts and can't move them- don't dose it, just keep with the Ich X and/or salt. Only you can make these decisions- only you can see what's going on in your tanks and what your fish/inhabitant need/behaving/eating etc.

Nerites are my favorite snails. They don't dig like say a Malasian Trumpet would, they just kind of push the substrate out of the way in order to, like I said, get to the good bits So you will never see them entirely buried. There are so many types too- and I've noticed some have specialty areas they like to clean. I've weirdly found Horned Nerites like to clean ALL the surfaces. but I have Olives and Zebras as well as in the past Red Racers but there are more! I think they are stupid cute- yes technical term. They don't eat commercial foods (except sometimes when it becomes detrius) so maintaining the right balance between available food and number of Nerites can be tricky. For example, I have two 20 gallon talls- 1 has 3 Horned Nerites (they are assisted by bladder snails but their number is small since I don't overfeed the tank) - that tank is totally free of algae. My other has 6 Nerites of different types and they barely scratch the surface of what is available. I could maybe add more but I don't just because I have Otos in that tank and I don't want them to outcompete each other.

@AndreaW that is likely exactly what happened. I have a couple that like to dig deep along the sides of the aquariums and as deep as they can get into the substrate- likely to get to the "good bits" and they do indeed come back out a bit dirtied. It looks like yours was covered with the same mulm mine get covered with when they do that or deep dive into the Amazon Sword. Thankfully My Otos usually take care of cleaning- or another obliging snail partner. 🙃

OTOCINCLUS VITTATUS: The once 2 Gallon QT So, since the remaining 3 Otos in QT seem to be sticking around for now I upgraded them to my biggest QT which is a 3 gallon QT. If in the future I'm unable to do a water change due to overtime they should be ok in there as opposed ot the 2 gallon. I think I'll be getting another one of those and scraping my 3 smaller QTs or keeping 1 and tossing the other 2. ***also mentioning that though my LFS was expecting O.Cocama this last week they did not get them in. I stopped by to check. (I have trust issues lol- so when they didn't call I wanted to make sure). I asked the guy at the counter he said they are still on the list but since they're wild they are not always in stock (as I suspected they are wild caught- this is why I hope to be able to breed them). He assured me they would call. I'll probably still pop in periodically. Do you all have this experience? All of my LFS don't answer their phones. I get a couple of them not answering as they are ALWAYS pretty busy but the one I'm trying to get O.Cocama from- I walk in and yes there are people there but there are 4-5 employees and not all of them are busy. It's a very small store. Thankfully it's only 10 minutes from my house.

My thought leans towards a growth or tumor. In which case, unless you want to find a fish doctor I would lean towards putting him back in gen pop and let him live out his life. He eats, likely poops (cause I mean, really) and acts otherwise fairly normal. He didn't spread it to anyone which makes me think that it's something internal specific to them. As long as nobody bullies him, my vote is FREE WILLY!!!!! 🙃

Are we judging on their criteria cause I already lose! 😄