Ottos

[NoGi]

I love these guys

 

 

 

[jayc]

So cute!

Love them too. 

 

You need to feed that one more Nogi.

 

Have you ever touched them? I catch mine to pat them occasionally.

Nice otto. pat pat pat.

 

Just kidding. No, not really.

 

What mean to say was, they have very rough skin, almost like sand paper, especially near the head and snout. 

You can just see it in your excellent photos.

[NoGi]

Hehe yeah does look a little skinny. I don't really feed them as such, they usually eat the shrimp food.

[Shrimpy Daddy]

Once they are acclimated and the water condition is good, they will try to play with you. Their behaviour is not like fish, more like dog. LOL!!! There are a few interesting behaviours you could try to observe:

1. When you put your head close to the tank wall to look at the shrimp, they will swim and suck on the tank glass right in front of your eyes. Kind of trying to get your attention.
2. When it is sucking on the tank glass not moving, use one finger and put in front of it then wiggle. They will greet back by waving the fin.

One thing you need to take note when keeping with shrimp. They love to hog on food. Meaning, they love to hide the food under their mouth or tummy to prevent others from eating. If you see such behaviour happens, try to feed during the period when your lighting intensity is the strongest. When light intensity is at the strongest, it will be Oto's sleeping time.

 

This is another variant of Otos worth collecting: 

 

 

Their body length is about 0.5 to 1cm longer than the one you have. It still consider quite small.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Shrimpy Daddy

[jayc]

Their behaviour is not like fish, more like dog. LOL!!! 

 

Have you ever touched them? I catch mine to pat them occasionally.

Nice otto. pat pat pat.

 

Do you pat yours too?

[Shrimpy Daddy]

Not at the stage of bring him out and pat, I think they will be stressed. More like tickle them when they are sucking on the glass. LOL!!!

[jayc]

HAHA, of course I was just half joking.

Only did it a couple of times when I had to move them from one tank to another. 

They were already stressed from being caught in the net. But I found it quite interesting how they have a rough sand paper like texture.

[Shrimpy Daddy]

LOL!!! I know you are joking. If there is an Oto that let you scoop and pat them, we should selective breed him. LOL!!!

 

Otos are famous of "jumping off the bridge"; they like  to do it when they are either very happy or stressed. Over the years, I think I have at least 5 of them die because of jumping out of the tank. At least 10 times, I saw them jump out or found them on the floor. And I scooped them up using my hands and managed to feel their skin. Their sand paper like skin is interesting. Not sure what is the purpose of that skin when they are in the nature.

[jayc]

Not sure what is the purpose of that skin when they are in the nature.

 

One possible use is for spawning.

If you are ever lucky enough to see them in the act, the male will wrap his body around the snout of the female in a U shape.

The rough skin is probably for grip. 

And the males seem to use his rough snout to rub the female as he chases her around.

When the male is wrapped around the snout of the female, she lays a few eggs, and he will release her, dart around to fertilise the eggs, and return to the wrap position. It repeats until she has laid all her eggs, which isn't many. 

One parent will stand guard for a while until it is spooked. I should remember to not stick my big face at the tank. I can't help it, I want to see !!

Alas, non of the fry in my tank ever survive. Don't know what to feed them, plus the Tetra in my tank probably gobble up a few as well.

Edited November 19, 2014 by jayc

[Shrimpy Daddy]

Actually, I'm one of the lucky one to witness the spawning process. Maybe, it is due to I have about 100 of them.

 

Some of my fry survived when I used to use ADA tank, I did not feed them anything but they just survive. This is probably due to they are living in heavily planted tank there are a lot of food source.

 

However after I switch to use all tank with overflow+sump, none survive. I guess they are drain off. :(

[NoGi]

How do you sex them and how easy is it to breed ottos? I wouldn't mind giving a go but have never tried to breed fish before.

[Shrimpy Daddy]

Sexing them is easy. Female is bigger and have significant convex abdomen area (look from the top). Regarding breeding, it is a mystery to me. It just happen. Maybe Jayc has insight on this.

[NoGi]

Yeah I asked the same question a couple of years ago and didn't really get anyone that knew either. Might look further into this.

[jayc]

Breeding them is so so difficult. That's why all our Otos are still wild caught.

 

I managed to get mine to spawn by doing a large water change.

 

They seem to spawn early in the morning. EARLY.

I did a 50 % water change with rain water and blackwater extract. The water was 4 degC cooler than the tank water.

 

I think the combo of sufficient food (algae), cooler water, and blackwater extract triggered their spawn. Simulates the raining season in the Amazon.

 

But, I can't get the fry to live long enough. There isn't enough food in an aquarium.

I gave up after 2 attempts.

Edited November 19, 2014 by jayc

[NoGi]

 

[Shrimpy Daddy]

They are so cute...

 

How many of them are you keeping in a tank? In the nature, they shoaling is in number of thousands. Hence, it is better to keep at least 5 of them in a tank. However, do take note about their bio-load. They poo a lot and continuously. 

[NoGi]

Only around 3 atm.

[Sprae]

I love ottos too but my last one jumped out of my plant tank. Trying to get another but for my main shrimp nano tanks. Any issues with shrimps?

[jayc]

 Any issues with shrimps?

 

No issue with shrimps for me.

My shrimps climb over them and the Oto just sits there.

[Shrimpy Daddy]

If you have Otos, make sure your shrimp population is huge enough. Or else, they will be afraid to fight food with Otos.

[NoGi]

Yeah I don't usually get that problem in my tank. I've got plenty of biofilm to keep them both happy.

[Zebra]

Looks like the perfect place to ask this.

I got 10 of these guys delivered today, and I'm just wondering about good WP for them? 

Im planning to put them in the 4ft build I've just finished, so I've read they prefer soft acidic water and like most planted tanks.

The tank is scaped with ADA Amazonia, 

TDS  280, After the water change and dosage.

temp  24C

ph around 6

NO2   0

Is this good for ottos? 

I had the scape done with a canister filter running the tank while I was doing the build and I also pre cycled the filter media for the sump in other tanks, So it's all very stable. Just doing one more quick scape, re attach some plants then a water change and they are ready to start acclimating, they've just arrived, and I have them Floating bag in my sump with the bag open and a few small pinholes so they're slowly getting fresh water. And there's a nice amount of algae for them to go to work on.

I designed the overflow to be fully shrimp safe  this tank, so excited to see if I can get some little ones going. 

I have another 10 coming like next week. Then have to think what sort of shrimp I want to stock it with. 

If this seems like a bad idea let me know, Iv ever never had otos before and I have other more seasoned tanks they could go in if they have to.

Cheers

[Madmerv]

That tank sounds perfect for them. They can tolerate a large range of water conditions but the lower PH and TDS is where they do spawn if they want to. I had 5 but 3 of them died over the months from getting them and the remaining 2 are now very shy. LFS selling them for $14 each now so they will have to wait for a price drop before some replacements are purchased.. I wish we could get them for $1 like in the US.

[Zebra]

Thanks for the info, I got mine from Jeffery Belbin at LCA, $9 ea and only ordered them yeterday and theyre already here. well packaged and I bought a heap of plants too. Im not sure they can ship to WA or TAS though.

 

[jayc]

1 hour ago, Zebra said:

TDS  280

your pH sounds fine, but as Madmerv said, the lower TDS the better.

280 TDS is not soft water, that's about medium.

If you can lower this to 150, that would be soft water.

 

Which is perfect parameters for shrimp as well. That's why Ottos are a good fit for shrimps - same water parameters.

 

10 is a good size for your tank. They love schooling together.

But is your tank going to be able to sustain the biofilm for 20 Ottos?

Just a thought. You want to make sure there is enough food for them. A new tank won't have built up enough biofilm yet.

 

If it was me, I'd wait on purchasing any more Ottos. At least until the tank has established itself. But that's just me. 

 

I suppose you can try feeding algae wafers or similar. But my Ottos never get to the algae wafer that I drop into the tank on time. Everything else will swarm on it before they get a chance. 

Edited December 7, 2016 by jayc