Micro Organisms For Aufwuch Feeders

[JaredL]

I'm interested in boosting or adding these microorganisms that otocinclus and other fish like to graze on. I'm curious how you know or ensure you have them.

I do have a decent amount of algae growth on my glass and around the tank, and lots of plants. I just don't know if this environment is sustaining a sufficient amount of what aufwuch feeders are looking for.

Could I introduce more by collecting rain water and adding to my aquarium?

[H.K.Luterman]

Adding more wood would encourage more aufwuchs for grazing, but you will probably still need to supplement food.

[Lifeisgood]

I believe Anubias plants are great for growing biofilm for Otis too.

[Brian]

I don’t believe the answer is rain water.  Driftwood may promote some.  You can always and should in my opinion supplement their diet with other foods.  Commercially made or with cucumber, zucchini, squash and green beans.  You can also take some aquarium safe rocks and place in a shallow container of water and put out in the sun for a couple of days.  Once covered in algae and bio film put in your tank.

Good Luck 

[gardenman]

Yeah, the rainwater by itself would do little. It's a predator versus prey issue. Our fish tanks tends to have far more predators than prey which makes supplemental feeding necessary. If you have one lion and a thousand zebras, the lion will do fine. If you have a thousand lions and one zebra, things tend not to go so well. In the wild, fish can forage for food. If they strip a rock clean they can swim a hundred feet downstream to a rock that's still covered and feast on it. The rock they'd stripped clean will then have a chance to regrow and be ready for another feast in a bit. Most of us don't have fish tanks large enough to allow a fish to swim a hundred feet away to forage for food. They're trapped in a relatively small box. When they've eaten all of the food that's available, it's gone and they're still trapped in the box. They'll be forced to nibble on whatever they can find and eat stuff as it grows, but that's not typically enough to sustain them. The fish density in our aquariums is typically many times that of what would be found in the wild.

Some fish, cory catfish being a good example, show the foraging instinct through their glass surfing. When there's food readily available they burrow down and chomp away. As soon as the food is gone they start looking to move outwards to find more food which ends up with them coming up against a glass wall that they then cruise up and down trying to find a way around or through it.

To grow enough aufwuch to sustain even a single oto long term would require quite a large tank with very limited stocking, Putting rocks, driftwood, tank decorations outside in water and letting stuff grow on them then rotating them into the tank could be useful, but labor intensive. And there's some risk of bringing in the wrong stuff.