Corys and Otos dying

[Monkeypoint]

My Corys and Otos keep dying and I have no idea why. I started with 9 Panda Corys (3 from my LFS and 6 from a reputable online vendor) and 6 Otos. Within days, most of them died (there's only 1 left). I drip-acclimated them. My tank is fully cycled with 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, nitrates between 10 - 30, PH consistently at 7.8, temp always at 78.3 at the lowest and 78.5 at the highest. It's a 55 gallon tank with 6 angelfish, 5 SAE, 2 Mollies, and 2 Plecos. The angels never bothered the Corys or the Otos. I have no idea what's going on. Could it be the gravel substrate?

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/23/2023 at 1:40 PM, Monkeypoint said:

PH consistently at 7.8,

that PH is really too high for most corydoras. https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=267

Temp is also pretty warm for both of those guys.

Ultimately if you want to keep them there, PH needs to come down, temp if possible down slightly is best. For otos, you want to make sure you have some wood in there.  For both of them you'd want lots of oxygenation and added airstones to make sure they do well at those warmer temps.

What kind of plecos are in the tank?

Edited January 23, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[Monkeypoint]

I can definitely bring down the temp and I have catappa leaves I can add to bring down the PH, but I think I'm just not going to subject Corys to the 55 gallon. There is quite a bit of wood in there.

 

There are two Bristlenose plecos and they both seem very happy. They're doing a great job cleaning the glass and I give them Rephashy Bottom Feeder chunks around 1-2 a week. But all the fish go nuts for the Repashy, especially the angels and the SAE.

Edited January 24, 2023 by Monkeypoint

[Lennie]

I’m sorry for your loss.

here is my opinion;

I’m gonna ask a Cory question. How long has been your tank set up? Besides it being “cycled”

Gravel substrate would not kill them in one day, but potentially may damage their barbels and limit sifting behavior in the long run. So I don’t think it is gravel substrate causing day 1 deaths.

I keep my sterbais and pygmy corys in 8.2ph hard water, I have never had deaths myself before. They are even breeding. But I can see ph difference causing issues if you did not drip acclimate them, especially considering drip acclimating can be risky to do so when fish are shipped, or the water they have been raised in was so much softer and acidic then yours. But you said u did.Is your water even different than your lfs water? I would expect those to survive at least. I always get my fish from my lfs, and it is a 10 min driveway so I always drip acclimate mine with a drop of stresscoat or prime during the procedure. It always worked for me.

Drip acclimating shipped fish can be risky. As they keeping pooping and stuff in those bags for a long time. And once the packs are open, and the air goes in. Boom. Ammonia spike, burned gills, hurt fish. Which is very likely one of the mains reasons why you might had big deaths imo. Especially if you have not used something like prime during the acclimation

Ottos don’t do well for most people, people generally get numerous of them to get a big group size and expect them to die at a level they have an okay size of group. They are mostly wild caught and fragile fish, which plays the biggest part on the big death numbers imo. You can find something else for your clean up crew, I would say pass on the ottos, unless you find tank bred ones. I have been keeping fish around 20 yrs of my life, I have not kept a single otto yet. You don’t really need them as much as the internet makes it sound. Get something more hardy:) or maybe even dont. You have 5 SAE! 😄

Also maybe trying to introduce 15 fish at a time mightve been a bit extra. Especially if your tank is somewhat new, or for example not densely planted.

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/23/2023 at 5:01 PM, Monkeypoint said:

I can definitely bring down the temp and I have catappa leaves I can add to bring down the PH, but I think I'm just not going to subject Corys to the 55 gallon. There is quite a bit of wood in there.

There are two Bristlenose plecos and they both seem very happy. They're doing a great job cleaning the glass and I give them Rephashy Bottom Feeder chunks around 1-2 a week. But all the fish go nuts for the Repashy, especially the angels and the SAE.

I can't say how much the leaves will drop PH.  I agree with your assessment that it might be better off to have a different species of corydoras in the 55 or to move the pandas elsewhere. 

 

On 1/23/2023 at 10:46 PM, Lennie said:

Ottos don’t do well for most people, people generally get numerous of them to get a big group size and expect them to die at a level they have an okay size of group. They are mostly wild caught and fragile fish, which plays the biggest part on the big death numbers imo. You can find something else for your clean up crew, I would say pass on the ottos, unless you find tank bred ones. I have been keeping fish around 20 yrs of my life, I have not kept a single otto yet. You don’t really need them as much as the internet makes it sound. Get something more hardy:) or maybe even dont. You have 5 SAE! 😄

 I'll toss this in here if you haven't seen it.  It's one of my favorite videos Cory has made.
 

 

[Lennie]

On 1/24/2023 at 4:01 AM, Monkeypoint said:

I can definitely bring down the temp and I have catappa leaves I can add to bring down the PH

My water is also 8.2ph 20kH and around 7 gh. I tried doing weekly %25 weekly water changes with %50 water and %50 RO water, with keeping driftwoods and 1 medium size catappa leaf and 3-4 alder cones in my tank for 8 months. The lowest ph I've seen around was 8.0ish. So it really depends on how hard is your water. 

I would not advice to try to change your ph a lot too anyway. It will change with every single water change otherwise, especially if your water is so soft and your only option is introducing tap water

On 1/24/2023 at 11:23 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

I'll toss this in here if you haven't seen it.  It's one of my favorite videos Cory has made.

Thanks for sharing it! I've seen this one before and it just makes me sad. I'm personally against the idea of wild fish keeping, it does not seem any different than getting a wild monkey or a lion from nature and putting it in a zoo to me. You can easily see how frightened the ottos look and how much stress they are under to during whole this time, from being caught to ending up in someones tank, and many don't even make it at the end of it. Meanwhile we can just get something tankbred from our locals or friends, and cause much less stress to fish or damage to nature. They don't do well in tanks, because they are not belong to there but nature.

That is why I loved when you said "Be the fish" in that advice topic. It makes it much easier to understand what they go through in this way.

We have so many options for clean up crew, and the best one being ourself. We really don't need to catch these lil guys in tons from their nature and make them go through this I believe

 

[Monkeypoint]

On 1/24/2023 at 4:16 AM, Lennie said:

They don't do well in tanks, because they are not belong to there but nature.

Wow, I did not know this. If I did, I would not have gotten the Otos. Thank you for responding. I learn something new every day here.

On 1/24/2023 at 1:46 AM, Lennie said:

How long has been your tank set up? Besides it being “cycled”

21 years!

For the 55 g, I'm just going to stick to fish that seem to be thriving and not put Cories through the stress of its parameters. The plecos and SAE eaters are doing a good job as it is, for the most part. I've also added more plants and some Nerite snails.

[Lennie]

On 1/24/2023 at 2:26 PM, Monkeypoint said:

Wow, I did not know this. If I did, I would not have gotten the Otos. Thank you for responding. I learn something new every day here.

I didn't want to sound like trying to lecture or something. Please don't get me wrong. It is really tough to reflect our emotions while typing I believe. It may sound negative unintentionally. Hope you didn't get me wrong.

I've seen a couple tank bred ones but they are really uncommon from what I know.

You can watch the abovementioned video of Cory that @nabokovfan87 has mentioned! It shows a lot about the ottos and what they go through.

cheers,

 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

I'll pipe in because I'm an Oto keeper and now have tank bred Otos (because mine spawned). Yes I agree, it sucks they are wild caught but sadly there are plenty (of fish) that are- Otos are one of the most neglected eventhough they are highly popular in the hobby. Personally I'm trying to get my Otos to spawn more so I can spread the wealth out in the hobby so maybe some day we will only have tank bred Otos. If nobody tries to do this, we will only ever have wild caught. Some of my Otos are out in the world in other fish keeper tanks now.

I think the mistake most fish keepers make (and I'm one of them in the beginning) I added too many fish in my first tank AND did not know that my tank should have been MUCH more established before adding Otos (and this goes for Cory, though I don't keep them, IMO though they are mostly tank bred). Bottom feeders IME do far better once your middle/top dwellers have been in the tank for months before adding them. They require a much more established bio-system before being added to our tanks. Otos are more sensitive because of what they've been through to get to us. Quarantine is VERY important for them, adjusting them to commercial foods also (Repashy I highly recommend) but you have to have some established/covered material (biofilm/algae) that you can put in QT with them to start out. 

So if you choose to add more- wait- wait months before adding them to your tank again. I wouldn't discourage you from trying Otos again. I started with 6 and lost 5- I got 6 more and using my experience from what I learned with the first batch (a hard lesson, but learned) I didn't lose any of them. They are difficult fish though- however they are rewarding when you've got them. 

Edited January 24, 2023 by xXInkedPhoenixX
Typos suck.

[Lennie]

On 1/24/2023 at 3:47 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

I'll pipe in because I'm an Oto keeper and now have tank bred Otos (because mine spawned). Yes I agree, it sucks they are wild caught but sadly there are plenty (of fish) that are- Otos are one of the most neglected eventhough they are highly popular in the hobby. Personally I'm trying to get my Otos to spawn more so I can spread the wealth out in the hobby so maybe some day we will only have tank bred Otos. If nobody tries to do this, we will only ever have wild caught. Some of my Otos are out in the world in other fish keeper tanks now.

That's interesting to hear. If you happen to have a post about  breeding them in a tank or willing to write one someday, I would be interested in to read that one. I love reading and learning from experiences. That one sounds like a such a unique and rare experience. I wonder what their babies even look like! 😄

You are right, almost all fish, except the mix-breeds and such, started from a point to be bred in tanks but collected from wild before ofc. I agree with ottos being one of the most abused ones as well. It is just I don't understand why they are so popular and seem like a must in a algae clean up crew. I thought maybe its the small size of them, like you can fit ottos in a size where you cannot put a SAE group in for example. But even Cory mentions that he only has 6 in a 800g tank of his in the video. Considering they need lots of surface to graze on, and enjoy a big school, it makes it harder to keep them in small tanks happy anyway. Cory also mentions that maybe you keep 5-6 on a 30g, but suddenly lose one on 10th month, because they cant eat enough over the course of time. So their small sizes does not make any sense to me when I try to relate to their popularity.

So yea, I just can't understand the point why ottos seem crucial part of a clean up crew, but not something else when the internet is full of experiences that they die in very high numbers and do bad in general. I personally have not ever met someone wanting to keep a tank for the look or characters of ottos and build around them. Maybe it is just me. I've heard tons of stories of people talking about their cichlids, gouramis, loaches, corydoras, etc tho. So I can't understand do we really need them, if it is not something only specific to them. Just my thoughts, feel free to ignore please. I'm thinkin out loud :'

People also still discuss about the prices of cpd or even cherry shrimps in some countries, and they are quite easy to breed, even for a regular person at home. I don't think tank bred ottos becoming a part of this cycle anytime soon, as they are super hard to breed, even for breeders, or maybe just less valuable economically? It seems very hard to meet the demand with tank breds, or maybe ever, until we understand them better some day. But it is ofcourse nice that you had a chance to breed and rehome some. It sounds like an exciting and very rare experience. And it was succesfully met the demand of some people you rehomed them to, which is definitely something worthy. I wish I could have a chance to keep some tank-bred ones. I believe they are doing much better than wild ones in the tanks.

Would love to see pictures one day if you have any saved. I love baby fish 😄

Have a good one!

 

 

 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

On 1/24/2023 at 6:55 AM, Lennie said:

I thought maybe its the small size of them, like you can fit ottos in a size where you cannot put a SAE group in for example. But even Cory mentions that he only has 6 in a 800g tank of his in the video.

You can fit many more Otos in a small space they have very small bio loads. I've kept upwards of 60 in a 20 gallon tank with no parameter issues and just 1x water change a week. My Otos have been transitioned to commercial foods, Repashy, algae wafers, this is crucial in higher numbers of course. They have much more fascinating and charming behaviors in larger numbers and I now think they should  be kept that way, 12 or more at least. I keep only small tanks and they've never been a bioload issue. 

On 1/24/2023 at 6:55 AM, Lennie said:

. I personally have not ever met someone wanting to keep a tank for the look or characters of ottos and build around them.

You have now met one. While they were one half of the fish I was interested in keeping (I started with Otos and Harlequin Rasboras) they are now a big interest of mine. They are currently in a species only tank so that I can save any of the babies from spawns. I'm letting them do their thing and not purposefully spawning them. I recently had some deaths from an unknown source and lost about half my adult population (my guess at this point was from an unknown parameter we cannot test for because their tank tested within normal parameters) but I still have upwards of 30 adults that I hope will get back to spawning. Unfortunately this happens in our hobby and I don't see it having anything to do with Oto fragility as I also lost 1 of 3 Nerites during the event. I currently have 12 babies that I'm raising to release into the fish keeping world when they are big enough. They take many months (6+) to get to a size most fish keepers think reasonable (they do live 5-7 years so I think that's pretty cool for such a small fish). I have people very eager to take some of them on in my local area but I'm looking for people in my area that also have some in their tanks to spread the genetics. 

I already do keep a journal here, you can find it on my link to my profile below, it's call the Accidental Oto Keeper. The babies are quite cute and nearly microscopic. Several pics can be found on my journal, but here are a couple of pics of babies who are probably 5-7 days old which start to color up: 

[Monkeypoint]

On 1/24/2023 at 6:34 AM, Lennie said:

Hope you didn't get me wrong.

 

On 1/24/2023 at 6:34 AM, Lennie said:

I didn't want to sound like trying to lecture or something.

Not at all! I appreciate being educated.

[Monkeypoint]

On 1/24/2023 at 7:47 AM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

They require a much more established bio-system before being added to our tanks.

My 55 gallon has been running for 21 years (time, however is not an indication of experience. Most of what I've learned has come through forums, YouTube and Google since the pandemic when I got serious about learning what to do and what not to do). But if I give it another go with Otos, I'm going to take your suggestion and quarantine them first. But I'm also wondering if there are places that sell only tank-bred Otos. I mean, for the short time that I had them, they scraped some of the most stubborn algae off glass and equipment.

[Sleepy]

On 1/23/2023 at 4:40 PM, Monkeypoint said:

My Corys and Otos keep dying and I have no idea why. I started with 9 Panda Corys (3 from my LFS and 6 from a reputable online vendor) and 6 Otos. Within days, most of them died (there's only 1 left). I drip-acclimated them. My tank is fully cycled with 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, nitrates between 10 - 30, PH consistently at 7.8, temp always at 78.3 at the lowest and 78.5 at the highest. It's a 55 gallon tank with 6 angelfish, 5 SAE, 2 Mollies, and 2 Plecos. The angels never bothered the Corys or the Otos. I have no idea what's going on. Could it be the gravel substrate?

Just wanted to chime in on two things that I believe were not the case or problem from my experience it didnt have anything to do with PH, temp etc. but instead drip acclimating isnt the way to go if you are getting fish shipped to you. The reason being is if there is ammonia in the bag and it gets exposed to air it will immediately become very toxic and you want to get them out of the bags as quickly as possible so temp acclimate and "plop and drop".

Also feel the need to say the whole Cory cats and substrate thing is an internet myth they live in varied environments sand, gravel, coarse gravel, stones etc. so you can keep them on just about anything.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

On 1/24/2023 at 12:05 PM, Monkeypoint said:

My 55 gallon has been running for 21 years (time, however is not an indication of experience. Most of what I've learned has come through forums, YouTube and Google since the pandemic when I got serious about learning what to do and what not to do). But if I give it another go with Otos, I'm going to take your suggestion and quarantine them first. But I'm also wondering if there are places that sell only tank-bred Otos. I mean, for the short time that I had them, they scraped some of the most stubborn algae off glass and equipment.

Oh dear, @Monkeypoint I was just speaking generally when it comes to Otos and not necessarily your current situation. But yes, quarantining Otos is very important - because they are wild caught they could bring a multitude of diseases to your tank which could be what has happened (or not you never know). They need to be closely monitored and switched over to commercial foods during this time. In a smaller tank this is easier to keep track of what they are doing and not doing as well as making sure the OTOS are eating the food and not the other fish (because trust me they will, especially Corycats). Even disease free I would keep them in QT until they are eating commercial foods. These are things I've never seen anyone say on the internet (making sure they are eating prepared foods prior to releasing to tanks) but IME this is very important. Also, on the subject of disease, it's easier to medicate a smaller tank as opposed to a 55 gallon. As I said, once you get them over the hump so to speak they are very wonderful little fish to have. I greatly enjoy their antics and their looks- eating algae is just a bonus. 

It would be a hard thing to find tank-bred Otos - I would suggest asking your local fish store if they ever stock them and if they can order them specifically for you (or if there is an online place you like to deal with ask them). They will be more expensive but would be worth it theoretically as they'd potentially be free of the problems most wild caught would come with. 

I agree with @Sleepy, not a fan of drip acclimating myself so I use the plop and drop method when it comes to shipped fish. When it's from a LFS I sometimes even ask them for extra water, put that in my small QT, and slowly add my own water over time. Some swear by drip acclimaiton and I wouldn't argue against it if it worked for someone but not for me thanks! 

Edited January 24, 2023 by xXInkedPhoenixX

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/24/2023 at 4:47 AM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

I think the mistake most fish keepers make (and I'm one of them in the beginning) I added too many fish in my first tank AND did not know that my tank should have been MUCH more established before adding Otos (and this goes for Cory, though I don't keep them, IMO though they are mostly tank bred). Bottom feeders IME do far better once your middle/top dwellers have been in the tank for months before adding them. They require a much more established bio-system before being added to our tanks. Otos are more sensitive because of what they've been through to get to us. Quarantine is VERY important for them, adjusting them to commercial foods also (Repashy I highly recommend) but you have to have some established/covered material (biofilm/algae) that you can put in QT with them to start out. 

I've got a group of 4. plants and moss in tow, they should be able to drop eggs.   I have one female who is ridiculously robust and looks like she's about to pop eggs any day.  I will need to make an effort to feed them and get them going, but... hopefully soon I can get some behavior.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

@nabokovfan87They will lay eggs on the undersides of plant leaves especially Amazon Sword IME. They are hard to spot and I'm not sure how easily they get knocked off and whether they'd still be viable if they were. I think feeding them more and doing waterchanges is a trigger for them. In fact I'm approaching the time of year they typically go at it again at my house. So we'll see. 

There aren't many eggs per female from what I can tell either. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/24/2023 at 1:16 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

@nabokovfan87They will lay eggs on the undersides of plant leaves especially Amazon Sword IME. They are hard to spot and I'm not sure how easily they get knocked off and whether they'd still be viable if they were. I think feeding them more and doing waterchanges is a trigger for them. In fact I'm approaching the time of year they typically go at it again at my house. So we'll see. 

Yep!  I am literally just waiting for plants to grow now.  The "if you build it, they will come" approach.

[Monkeypoint]

On 1/24/2023 at 12:16 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

You have now met one.

I think they're adorable.