Oto’s… egg eaters??

[Phillip]

Are oto’s known egg eaters? I have some oto’s in with rice fish. The past two nights when checking for rice fish eggs I’ve found an oto in the spawning mop. I assume he’s eating eggs, but I didn’t think they ate eggs. I guess I should move them out if I want to maximize eggs??

[gardenman]

As a general rule, everything eats fish eggs. And it's a good thing. That's why the world isn't knee deep in fish. Take koi for example. For every pound a koi weighs (and koi can weigh a lot) they lay 50,000 eggs. A big female koi in her prime (20 pounder) can easily lay a million eggs. And some koi weigh as much as 90 pounds.  Yeah. If things aren't eating the eggs and the fry all hatch and survive, we'd all be knee deep in koi. 

And it's not just in freshwater. Coral spawns will often release a million or more eggs in a single evening. If something's not eating them, they'd take over the world. It's very much a fish eat fish world out there and it's a good thing. If the other fish weren't eating the eggs and fry, there would be way, way too many.