xXInkedPhoenixX

OTOCINCLUS VITTATUS: The Accidental Oto Tank Afternoon Maintenance: Earlier I had discovered the Aqueion QuietFlow 10 on this tank had stopped operating. Whoops. My bad. I panic ordered one from the big box- regardless that's the time I think about back up plans in case it were totally broken. Turns out I just needed to give it a good cleaning and squeeze out the prefilter sponge. It started right up again once I did that. There are two very great things about this HOB. It never has to be primed. It's cheap to replace. Now I have to add, "it takes a lickin and keeps on tickin". There was no real need to worry as the sponge filter is in there too. Needless to say the bigbox emailed me and said they had to cancel my order, they were out. I'm still gonna buy another one... Evening patrol: When I was spot cleaning earlier I saw a little one on the Amazon Sword about the same age as the one that died last night. Impossible to catch there I let it be. It is now taunting me on the glass. I decided to let it be. For now. I think too I've discovered that I *MIGHT* be able tell boys from girls even when small. The females look massive compared to the boys and have a longer body. The boys are shorter and smaller. I might be wrong on the boy in this pic as the body is a little long but it kind of paints a picture of what I'm talking about.

Confirm with your LFS before you let anyone hatch or you'll be stuck with a bajillion babies. 🙂

@Guppysnail your thought is totally legit but the ones that are grey have always been grey and some are lighter in color and it seems fade to this. It's interesting. We shall see. There's no way for me to know in the Parent Tank if it's an adult I started with that faded or a juvenile who at this point would be around 8 months old.

@PineSong unfortunately I cannot tell by the picture. I can see the little one looking right at you though haha. Is there a small indent in their belly? Or is it a trick of the light in your pic? I circled it: I've not seen any spirals on my Otos, but when their bellies aren't' little pearls I start to get concerned and look for other signs of illness and/or up their food/options. It's not saying your Oto isn't ok, that's just when I start to worry about mine.

@Guppysnail that picture has your snail looking very much like a Muppet. It's adorbs.

Hahaha @Guppysnail are you sure it isn't "watch me do this watch me do this, are you lookin??"

Yep. It does indeed appear so. If they are attached by their parts. One way to see sex without doing anything TO the snails is when they are making their "cartoon faces" you can see their sex organs, they attach on the left sides as you can see. My male Mystery Snail Pegasus and female Mystery Snail Escape' (RIP) are demonstrating here for you.

This is what I picture their thoughts being when they're scraping the glass... (star of the show is Curlyque)

I ended up getting a pretty good deal on some "pest free" Guppy Grass (3 handfuls for the price of 2- the rest of it going into another tank and a relative's). I'm going to try it first though it really reminds me of bermuda grass. Hopefully it grows on me (ba dum dum!). If not I'll try one of the others suggested here. I'm pretty well convinced my Subwassertang is going to give up the ghost, it is SUPER dark and seems like its deteriorating. I didn't pull it out because I'm sure if it IS going to come back taking it out probably won't help it as I've said before- moving it 3x probably didn't make it happy. Anyhow here is the Guppy Grass. Don't mind the Sake glass that is holding my crushed coral 😄

OTOCINCLUS VITTATUS: The Parent Tank Something I've noticed in the past maybe others can chime in about. When I've purchased Otos they've all be the same color grey. I've noticed among my offspring a color variant(?) which I call blonde. today while inspecting The Parent Tank I saw two of these different colors hanging out together. I've also noticed this color in my Accidental Oto Tank. Maybe we should call them Silver and Gold. (there might look like there''s a trick of the light in my pics, but it's only a reflection in the glass)

@rnn you are welcome. Forums are designed for us to support each other and share knowledge, this just happens to be one of the best ones. Like @Irene said above one of the reasons they could have passed is a conflict between your home aquarium/water and the LFS's. So when you are ready to try again, ask them. You may have to source from a different LFS (I have, and had better luck with the 2nd one). Asking them how long the fish have been there, if they QT/medicate (though most of the time that answer will be no), and what their water parameters/temps are- are always good. When I took my Tiger Otos home recently I asked them for an EXTRA bag with THEIR water in it. So when I took the Otos home half the water was mine and half theirs (in a 2 gallon QT tank). So over the following days with small water changes on a daily basis it became all MY water. I feel like that worked out well. I have found Otos to be particularly sensitive; I have no corys but from this forum I have gathered the same. Were you planning on other fish? If you were planning on other tetras, rasboras or middle dwellers you might want to start with them next as I've found the bottom dwellers often have a better chance with a more established tank. THAT being said you mentioned snails. For a 5 gallon tank I will always recommend 1 nerite snail. A Mystery snail has a lot of personality but in my opinion aren't great at cleaning algae and are BIG bioloaders (meaning a lot of waste)- they are wonderful so if in the future you upgrade to a bigger tank I would encourage you to get one. Nerites however are one of my favorites for algae eating snails that WON'T reproduce. If you happen to get a female they will lay tiny hard white eggs on surfaces and plants but they will never hatch. Some dislike the females because of the eggs because they aren't easy to clean off but I don't have an issue with it, I call it tank glitter. If that is something tht would bother you just ask the LFS you get it from if they would exchange if the snail turned out to be female. If you have to medicate your tank with something that is not snail or invert safe always have a back up plan for them. A nerite will help keep you algae in check (just make sure it's in the tank before you add one as they aren't great at eating commercial foods). Anyway you'll be amazed at how cute the Nerites can be watching their little mouths on the glass and how fast they are at keeping your tank and glass pretty much algae free with the exception of some algaes. There are lots of different colors and patterns- see some of the ones I have and have had:

@PineSong ah, even harder. That's why I'm having a hard time taking pics of the Tiger Otos. Tannins. ___________________________________ OTOCINCLUS VITTATUS: The Accidental Oto Tank Spawn 5: Unfortunately while doing evening checks the solo baby Oto I caught today is deceased. It was active when I checked prior. This is to be expected- not that I like it. I'll keep the small floater in the tank for now and check for babies in the morning.

@Patrick_G maybe this is where our little friend @redmare should go with research with BB and tanks. I know there's also been debates on this forum over whether bottled bacteria is bunk or not. So it can be a beginning to end lifecycle of BB in good condtions and bad.

@PineSong any way you can capture a pic? It has been my experience so far that a healthy, eating Oto definitely has the fat, single colored irridescent white pearl belly. I have had a couple, one recently who appeared listless in fact spiraling while swimming so I caught them by hand and put them in a quarantine. You can't see by this picture the color but you can see it isn't fat and round- when their bellies shrink they have an irridescent/foil look about it- with that shiny white like a pearl mixed with some metallic pink. For an Oto keeper it instantly doesn't look right (I mean the spiral swimming alone isn't right but just going by the belly). I caught this little one and kept it in QT for a week with plenty of food. It seemed to recover and had no other symptoms. The belly wasn't FAT but it appeared "full" and didn't have that odd coloring to it. I released it back into my Parent Tank, which is where it was to begin with. I started putting more commercial food out since then for them. The unfortunate thing about Otos, at least for me is they tend to hide most of the day. I of course see an odd one skitter across the tank from time to time- but it's not enough to do a welfare check on them daily or even weekly. You just take the chance when you get them. Which is why I like the Accidental Oto tank, I see them far more often. Anyhow this is the "skinny" Oto I had caught (not dead, just sitting funny). Post a pic of yours if you get a chance, I'm interested in seeing this "cinnamon bun" effect. 🙂

@Nick H. I sincerely wish it was some kind of water view other than rain. It is just sky. 🙃 Thanks @Guppysnail, my trumpet vine decided to continue to bloom this year. Probably in part due to the constant aquarium water it gets supplied lately. It's part of my container garden.

There are also wall attachment options in case you do have no floor space: https://www.amazon.com/Hygger-Aquarium-Replaceable-Biochemical-Gallon（M）/dp/B07VV89SJY/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=double+aquarium+wall+sponge&qid=1636489173&sr=8-4

This absolutely happens with fish and snails, I've seen posts about. Only concern is that if it's too aggressive it could hurt the snail. This is one of the comments I've found about such things happening. I know there's more but I cannot find them....

It's 55 degress and raining (thankfully) where I am. Glad it's my day off as I can warmly watch from inside. Tank maintenance....on my list.

OTOCINCLUS VITATTUS: The Accidental Oto Tank Fourth spawn: 15 days old. Morning Roll Call: The 5 baby Vittatus are going strong, boy do they poop- and their little bellies are nicely rounded- so they're eating well and growing nicely. While scanning the glass for morning patrol I spotted the start of a new spawn. This one is older than what I started with the 5, they are not as small and translucent as the first when I caught them so I'm guessing they are 3 to 5 days old. It seems Vittatus lays very few eggs and some may or may not be viable. They come in small spurts. This might be the start of another small batch. That said I only spotted one. From past experience I've learned not to put new batches in with the older batch. It's not like they get picked on or eaten- BUT they get mosh pitted. If you've ever seen an Oto group do a brief "freak out" where they ping pong all over a space/tank this is what the tiny Oto do from time to time in the breeder boxes. This is when I found the smallest of the Otos are at risk from blunt force trauma. I've also found the little ones suffocated in piles of food so when I first get them they get the tiniest bit of food so that isn't possible- with the 5 this is how I started them but now that they are bigger I put in more. First, to catch the new one. I explained above how I catch new Otos. This time I took a couple of pictures for reference. Having caught the little one (thankfully on the first try) it was now time to do a switcherroo. I cleaned out the small floating breeder containing the 5 with a lab/craft dropper and then took my larger floating breeder. The 5 larger baby Oto got shuffled into that, food replaced (I replace food every day anyway). The good thing now is that the smaller breeder has been floating a while so it is bound to have plenty of bio film for the new Oto to eat. Hopefully they will be joined shortly by more companions. When I first started with my surprise Otocinclus spawn I had no plans to breed so had no "fry" food on hand. I started with crushing Hikari Wafer between 2 spoons and successfully raised many Otos- so I continue this practice. I have added to it this time around by putting in a tiny amount of Repashy Super Green. I will be scanning the glass more frequently in the next couple of days to look for more fry.

OTOCINCLUS COCAMA: The 2 Gallon QT It has now been 27 days into the quarantine of my Cocama bunch. We hold strong at six beautiful specimens. At at least 4x the overall size of my Vitattus species they are just mesmerizing to look at. (The water is foggy due to the tannins and debris from the wood inside). I feel like I got some decent shots today since they were pretty close to the sides: ***aquarium friends, I need to decide where they might go next week. I have 2 viable homes, I'm leaning more towards one than the other but maybe you can also weigh in: I have "The Parent Tank" which is a 20 gallon tall, the oldest of my 5 tanks and where the Oto saga all began. There are 2 Mystery snails, 10 Harlequin Rasboras and 14 or so Otocinclus Vittatus. Lots and lots of plants. (if you need a visual click my Solid Facts link and scroll to the bottom for pics of my tanks) I have The Accidental Oto tank which is a 10 gallon bare bottom with 35 or so Vittatus as mentioned in the beginning of this journal. Which do you think I should put them in? I have benefits and concerns about both, just wondering what initial thoughts might be.

I don't run heaters in my tanks. They run anywhere from 74 to 81 and fluctuate throughout the day. All will be well. 🙂 I do however run lithium battery backed air pumps to keep sponges running during any power interruptions.

@Atitagain my very first thought when I saw the initial set up was Val, I think it would look awesome in that tank.

Danios first. I feel like the Corys are going to do better in a more established tank though they're not an algae eater. I could be wrong.

The LFS will be lucky to have your plants for sure. Once that sample is brought I wouldn't be surpised if they contact YOU.

I feel like QT/grow out tanks/tubs etc are one of the harder aspects of fish keeping as we are all told to cycle the tank BEFORE adding fish. In these cases we hope that whatever media we put in is enough to at least keep the fish alive!!!