hospital tank vs main tank for oto previously stick in net?

[Moose]

Hello all -- I've lurked for awhile but have finally wound up with a question particular enough that I made the jump to creating an account to post. Here's what's going on: 

Yesterday I embarked on a re-scape of my main tank (57L/15 gal, heavily planted). Knowing this project might take me a while, I got my quarantine/hospital tank (17L/4.5 gal plastic tub) set up to hold the fish while I worked (filled with water from the main tank). It's got a sponge filter that had been running as an extra filter in my main tank for approx. 2.5 months, a heater, a couple catappa leaves, a plastic hide, and a ton of floating plants both to help with possible stress and because I needed somewhere to store them while scaping. 

Unfortunately, while transferring one of my otocinclus in to the hospital tank, her (pronoun chosen arbitrarily) barbels got stuck in the net. I'd heard this was a risk with corys and other catfish but since otos are so small I actually hadn't realized they had barbs as well. Initially I left the net in the water bc I'd read (elsewhere) that otos in this situation may be able to get unstuck...no luck, so I trimmed down to a small piece of net to see if she could get herself out of that. As of early this morning still no dice, so as carefully as I could I snipped down and pulled off the remaining bit of net. Obviously this whole ordeal involves a lot of stress for the fish, and in addition I don't know if she may be injured. 

The conundrum: The hospital tank had some ammonia this morning. Initially I'd thought she might be sucking on the net rather than tangled so I dropped some repashy gel in there to entice her just in case....between that, my mystery snail, my other oto, and the tank being newly set up, clearly the sponge filter hit it's limit. I did approx a 50% water change to bring that level down.

On the other hand, my main tank parameters are much more stable. There is no other livestock in the main tank at the moment. It's a larger body of water with a much larger and more established (approx 4 months) filter and I reused all of my substrate when re-arranging so that's rife with bacteria as well.

I don't want to stress the fish further, and the hospital tank is easier to find her in for visual checks and of course easier to dose if meds are later needed. However, the main tank is fully cycled and more stable (I did water testing on it to confirm as well this morning in case moving things around disrupted anything -- all good) and I worry about the ammonia particularly if she's injured. She might be more comfortable in the main tank as well from the perspective of: more places to hide, lots of wood decor with biofilm that she loves, anubias leaves to nom algae off of, etc. What would you do? 

(ps: I know 2 otos and a mystery snail is drastically understocked for a 15 gal....I'm new and ramping up my stocking slowly. These guys were added back in January and acclimated really well. In addition to repashy, the otos are even accepting hikari mini algae wafers! I also know that from a 'schooling behavior' perspective 2 otos is not ideal. I went with that number based both on Cory's video about otos + advice of an employee in the Edmonds store from the perspective of 'want to make sure there's enough algae and biofilm to sustain them'. Since they're taking wafers, I'm thinking of adding a couple more. Full stocking plan is to add a pair of peacock gudgeons and 10 of some kind of small upper level schooling fish...that's a post for a different day)

[Tony s]

I think I would use the 15g tank. Add a splash of fritz7 and just keep a close eye on her. That way you could rework your main tank to your liking. She should be just fine. But stress in otos can be no joke. They can be a bit finicky anyway. But at least in the 15 you watch her. And the faster you rescape your main, the faster she gets to settle down in her new permanent home. 

[Moose]

Thanks Tony, I was leaning in that direction but it's always reassuring to learn someone else is thinking the same way and I haven't missed something obvious. I moved her over to the 15 gal yesterday morning just after I saw your post. For the rest of yesterday she was sticking to the tank walls and her gils looked a little inflamed/like maybe she was hyperventilating....but I'm happy to report that she's back to her usual behavior moving throughout the tank and grazing off the wood hardscape today! I got a glance when she was against the side of the tank and her gils look their normal light pink as well, so too soon to declare it a definitive success but I'm optimistic. 

I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to my post, it helps a lot for a nervous new fish keeper ❤️ 

[Tony s]

On 3/18/2024 at 7:40 PM, Moose said:

I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to my post, it helps a lot for a nervous new fish keeper

You know. That’s what I like best about this forum. I remember very well the feeling of not knowing. It’s kind of overwhelming. And try to help when I can. 😁