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Otocinclus; Fat, Bloated or Carrying Eggs?


Lennie
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So it has been a couple months size I got my ottos. As a precaution, I did 2 rounds of prazi in food (my all fish including otos eat commercial food), and one round of levamisole last week.

However there is one oto that seems extremely fat. Does it seem like carrying eggs, or she is just fat? She(?) poops perfectly normal. But this is kinda worrisome.

The tank is established no ammonia or nitrite, around 10 nitrate max. Heavily planted, usually gets food once a day. Kh 13, gh 6 ph 7.5. Currently has active carbon running after medication.

they eat whatever I drop to tank. I try to feed spirulina and algae as much as I can but they go for high protein foods as well.

Everyone else in the tank including other otos seem fine.

here are the pics:

5F5B84AF-DE4F-421F-B2C8-CC065921AAFA.jpeg.f2dfba4155b2792ccf72666774309066.jpegE0B9436A-7F50-45F3-848D-9FD7F96BCB91.jpeg.f0897fefa1c2df4cfca91f795685e708.jpeg7BB13A7E-9218-42DD-9B22-F8A381BE9EE8.jpeg.2f5853cdb39776d39e8e7f97be780568.jpeg
 

@Odd Duck @Colu @xXInkedPhoenixX

Edited by Lennie
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I'm looking at their shape from the top. It has been my observation that females are shaped differently. I'll show you examples from old pics of mine, the females have an elongated body and are slightly hourglass shaped I point them out in the picture: image000000(245).jpg.2d0b645337c3a01b2c47b28594f8ee9b.jpg

image000000(244).jpg.7e9a09bc0f1b439f41b8d3f9acb48519.jpg

And here's a pic of my original Momma Oto (just her belly) Note that she's pink and not red: 

image000000(243).jpg.e7b07bd7fddbf985c75e5fccc182bc04.jpg

Edited by xXInkedPhoenixX
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On 4/6/2023 at 8:57 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

I'm looking at their shape from the top. It has been my observation that females are shaped differently. I'll show you examples from old pics of mine, the females have an elongated body and are slightly hourglas shaped I point them out in the picture: image000000(245).jpg.2d0b645337c3a01b2c47b28594f8ee9b.jpg

image000000(244).jpg.7e9a09bc0f1b439f41b8d3f9acb48519.jpg

And here's a pic of my original Momma Oto (just her belly) Note that she's pink and not red: 

image000000(243).jpg.e7b07bd7fddbf985c75e5fccc182bc04.jpg

Okidoki! I will try to catch one pic tomorrow 🙂

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A. Seems like a female. My current batch haven't bred yet, but the ones I'm suspecting are females all have the same general shape as yours.

B. If she's pooping just fine, then it's likely not a digestive issue. Are the poops really long and stringy? That'd be an indication of worms. Fish poop is normally stringy, you're looking for over an inch and whitish. You've got both meds used in de-worming. If she had it, it should be passed by now but maybe it needs another round.

C. Could be an internal tumor, but there's not a whole lot you could do about that. It'll take its course without your intervention. She'll just be doing her thing until one day she's not.

D. Might also be a gut blockage if she's been going for the high-protein food, but you said she's been pooping. Dean normally does live-foods to condition otos for breeding, if I remember right. That'd be high protein, too. So, you might've accidentally conditioned her to breed if her gut is working fine.

 

If it's eggs, then your best bet is to do the next water change with 5-10 degree cooler water, ideally quite a bit softer as well. Maybe sneak in a gallon or two of RO water from the grocery store as that's almost mineral-free. She'll be the center of attention within an hour or two, and you'll see T-poses as she latches onto a male. I don't think there's any real risk of letting her hold onto those eggs, at least I haven't heard much about egg-bound Otos... The thing about Oto fry is that they have a pretty low survival rate if you're not actively trying to raise them. If you don't want more, just trigger her and then leave the eggs in the tank alone.

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On 4/6/2023 at 9:16 PM, Comradovich said:

If she's pooping just fine, then it's likely not a digestive issue. Are the poops really long and stringy?

The poops are short and brown! 

On 4/6/2023 at 9:16 PM, Comradovich said:

Might also be a gut blockage if she's been going for the high-protein food,

That's kind of my worry too. They follow pygmy cories everywhere and eat whatever they eat. So yea, they eat high protein bottom dweller wafers as well...

On 4/6/2023 at 9:16 PM, Comradovich said:

Maybe sneak in a gallon or two of RO water from the grocery store as that's almost mineral-free.

I have RO water at home!  

The tank is pretty densely planted but it is a community tank. I have red lizard whiptails, honey gourami, pygmy cories, sparkling gouramis and rosy barbs. So it would be very unlikely for eggs to survive I bet

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@xXInkedPhoenixX, very interesting note about the hourglass shape.  That’s good to know.  @Lennie, that seems like maybe a little more distention that I would expect but without the full on, hourglass shape happening.  It could only be from overeating.  Is it persistent when the fish haven’t been eating as much?  Do you ever skip a day of feeding?  That’s easy enough to do and might tell us more about what’s happening.

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On 4/6/2023 at 9:51 PM, Odd Duck said:

@xXInkedPhoenixX, very interesting note about the hourglass shape.  That’s good to know.  @Lennie, that seems like maybe a little more distention that I would expect but without the full on, hourglass shape happening.  It could only be from overeating.  Is it persistent when the fish haven’t been eating as much?  Do you ever skip a day of feeding?  That’s easy enough to do and might tell us more about what’s happening.

No I don't skip feeding the tank but I only feed it once a day! 

I can try skipping to feed tomorrow and try to observe if it will help by any means 🙂

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@Lennie yes unlikely. I just had Harlequins in my original 20 tall set up, I pulled them because they were eating the Oto fry. Now it's a species only tank with some Nerites. Nerites don't seem to disturb the eggs since they lay on the undersides of broad leaves. 

@Odd Duck, just something I've noticed since my original Momma Oto showed me. Seems to be consistent with my observations in keeping them. Never looked it up (not sure the info is there) and never had anyone try and tell me differently. 🙃

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Sad news, that oto was dead today. Others all seem nice with normal bellies. 
I have taken a pic anyway:

48581FA1-EC2F-4E42-8C55-59FD403619AC.jpeg.cbe08d25cd8788a05ad8a50e16613194.jpeg

Poor baby :((

@xXInkedPhoenixX

I consider if I should move ottos from pygmy cories tank to another one. Maybe it helps them to grazing nature back rather than being on commercial foods? Idk...

Edited by Lennie
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Aww poor thing. 😢 

I thought she (looks like a she) appeared very red and was probably sick. It could be she was distended because of an illness or eggs would be hard to say. 

I don't think commercial foods would be an issue necessarily. 

That said. I personally wonder about high protein diets. I get a lot of people feed them worms and other protein but they are herbivores from my understanding tho in the wild I'm sure they eat proteins just because they are grazers. I've noticed mine prefer foods higher in veggie content like Repashy Super Green

This is not at all to say that's the issue. I just wonder. I don't think you'd have to move them if the other ones seem healthy.

You recently treated the tank so clearly there was a concern for illness. It was probably something like that. I'm sorry she passed. 

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On 4/7/2023 at 6:00 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

Aww poor thing. 😢 

I thought she (looks like a she) appeared very red and was probably sick. It could be she was distended because of an illness or eggs would be hard to say. 

I don't think commercial foods would be an issue necessarily. 

That said. I personally wonder about high protein diets. I get a lot of people feed them worms and other protein but they are herbivores from my understanding tho in the wild I'm sure they eat proteins just because they are grazers. I've noticed mine prefer foods higher in veggie content like Repashy Super Green

This is not at all to say that's the issue. I just wonder. I don't think you'd have to move them if the other ones seem healthy.

You recently treated the tank so clearly there was a concern for illness. It was probably something like that. I'm sorry she passed. 

I never quarantine my fish. One of my rams had a sunken belly in another tank, @Odd Duck helped me a lot with medication dosages I got to treat that tank. So as a precaution, I treated this tank too as I had so much medicated food or medication dosage otherwise would go to trash for nothing. So yea, I was not really worried of something in this tank tbh

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Sorry for your loss.  I was concerned that the fish looked a bit more distended and kind of pushed more ventrally than when they look gravid.  Made me think potential liver enlargement as the first thing that crossed my mind.  Lots of possibles, but hard to tell a definitive answer on why.

I would probably just monitor rather than start moving everybody around since that causes a lot of stress trying to catch fish out of a tank.  If anybody else shows symptoms, then reach out again and we’ll see what we can figure out.

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