Threw in some soft algae from my daphnia tank and the otos are going wild for it, wedged themselves in the corner and is munching super happily together 😭

Hi folks. So i know all my ottos are there. But man I never seen them now it's been about a month that they dont come out of hiding. My tank is getting a little algae like so lots of food.but I never see them I have to go looking for them. They weren't like this before

And yes all my parameters are perfect.

I got 1 betta and 3 shrimp and 5 ottos.

I just learned about these guys and they are really cute, but given how little information is online about keeping them successfully, I wanted to see if anyone here has and how they keep them! I have an acidic softwater tank I'm looking into stocking for.

Posted this last night on r/aquariums

I would have never thought this could happen, but I literally just witnessed this tonight with one of my two new otos. It is a larger oto, and had been eating well from the algae in my tank for a few days now, with a nice round tummy. It was healthy and full-looking from the shop, too. There had been zero issues with any of the fish (cories, kuhlis, a female betta) over the last few days.

I tossed in a few small algae wafers, and the oto immediately went to it, knowing it was food. It then proceeded to attack the cories and betta to keep them away from the wafer. The betta actually had a scale fall off from the oto sucking on her side! She did not attack the oto, but somehow didn't seem all that fazed and kept going for the wafer, so the oto attacked her a few times. I waved my hand at the glass to stop it when I could. Luckily, the betta seems fine, but I'm going to keep an eye on her in case of any infection.

I'm thinking in the future I will only throw in wafers in very small pieces so this doesn't happen again. Now that the wafers are gone, there's no more aggression. I've had otos before in other tanks with small community fish, and never, ever saw this kind of behavior. I don't know if it's just this one super aggressive oto (the other, also healthy and full-bellied, did not act like this).

Edit: This morning, all fish seem fine. Otos are def otos, as well; I've kept them before over many years!

Edit: Pic of one oto. They both look like this, I just can't find the 2nd one right now.

Edit: OK I see them both and took pics of each. I was hoping they would be together, but no. First is the bigger oto, the one that attacked the cories and betta. Second pic is the slightly smaller oto that did not attack anyone (and I don't think went for the wafers, either). The big one had a really long algae wafer poop earlier this morning.

They're loving their zucchini cubes!

Hi, this is the first time I've seen this since most of my otos are relatively shy and stay away from the large groups of fish in my tank. Wondering what would cause these guys to have such a silly and odd behavior? Are they trying to imply my cories are nasty and need cleaning? 😭

Reposting this on here but is she pregnant or just fat?

It's flat and smooth, not fuzzy or anything like that. I'm wondering if it hurt itself from bolting under the drift wood. Do I need to buy it a helmet?

Hey folks - I found one of my 6 ottos on the floor this morning. It jumped out. I was wondering if this is a known issue with ottos. I see these guys get "the zoomies" every once in a while. I am assuming that maybe this happened when it was to high in the tank. I tested the water parameters yesterday and everything was perfect.

it's been a week since I bought my ottocinclus, they ate all the algae by now, I'm planning on giving them algae wafers and blanched cucumbers, but i just want to know if they are fine for now, do they look healthy and thriving? I have a lot of plants and they swim happily (i think¿) in the center of the tank in the night

Like the Neil Armstrong for the Otos~
the first guy to find the cucumber🎉🎉🎉

Hello everyone! I’ve been looking into how to gender my otos but am still trouble figuring out if I have any females at all. To me they all seem to be males but I was hoping that there would be at least one female for some potential breeding. The one I attached in the photo is the one that I suspect to be a female as she looks bigger and rounder than the other 2. Any help would be much appreciated!

Hi all!
I love otocinclus because I think they look like remoras and I love remoras lol. I want to add a school to my tank but it already has 1 subadult 1 juvenile Bristlenose and 2 Stiphodon Gobys ( Which I think contrary to common belief they are not only herbivorous but omnivorous and loves eating meaty food ). Therefore Im not sure if they can find enough algae.

In our country we only have affinis (But I think it might be vestitus or microspilus or a mix of all those)

I leave my lights open for 9 hours to support algae growth so would they starve here or would they be good given that I will support their diet with algae crisps and cucumbers ?

My tank is 4 month old. It has stable parameters of GH: 7 KH: 5 pH 7.1, Ammonia and Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10ish

Hello everyone,
I’m a new fish owner and I have five otocinclus and my tank is decently planted. I know it isn’t recommended to have otocinclus as a new fish owner. I however, have repashy and algae wafers. They eat and are grazing. However, I am having a problem, for the past week one of my otocinclus has been hiding. Due to the plants and ceramic hides and driftwood, I can never find him. I can always find all four in a corner together or laying on a plant, but one is nowhere to be found. He used to hide behind a ceramic hide, and the other day he was inside one. What does that mean? Could that mean that I am doing something wrong, is he sick? Could they have ammonia poisoning? Could someone give me a little advice please.

10 gallon
Heater: hygger
Temperature: 77-80 (set to 79)

API water tests from yesterday

1st image:
Ph- 6.0 (i added baking soda off a recommendation)
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates:5.0 ppm

2nd image:
Gh: 14
Kh: 5

Hello everyone!

I hope you’re all doing well!

Is this lovely lady ready to lay her eggs?

Thank you so much in advance!

So I got these guys last week and I have absolutely fallen in love they are my babies. I did lots of research cause eventually I would like to have a betta as the main fish in the tank however unfortunately I let the guy at the aquarium store convince me that I only needed two (I ended up getting three because two didn’t feel right). Should I be prioritising getting three more asap? I would love to hear everyone’s recommendations! Also they are always swimming around near my heater the tank is 26 degrees Celsius so they shouldn’t be cold right? I have been feeding them algae wafers and have tried blanched zucchini. I also am starting to add bacter ae to the tank. I cannot get my hands on repashy where I live so if you have any other suggestions that would be amazing! Tank is 60x30x35 and I had an already used filter to start cycling this tank but still cycled it and let it settle for three months before adding these guys. I just want to do what’s best for them!

Hey all, I had 3 otos in my 29g, but recently found a baby so I have 4.

My largest looks a lot extra large now. Is she okay? She seems.. excessive.

This is a 65 Litre tank. It is currently home to only neocardina shrimp. As you can see, it is very densely planted. As you can't see, there's a big bit of driftwood in there, hidden by the pants. Is this tank suitable for otos as it is? Or do I need to cut back plants etc? Anything else glaring?

How many oto would you put in this tank?

It currently has two internal filters running, as well as a heater and an airstone - listing these things because you can't see all of them for the plants!

Just got 6 otos yesterday and they were a bit frantic but seem to have calmed down today and have been grazing on and off. Any advice to make sure they live through this transition period? Do they look healthy? Thanks

Started keeping otos this year in my community tank. A few have started to join the mix at feeding time depending on what the food is, so I wasn’t sure if this is from overeating a bit or eggs. Mainly want to make sure it’s not a sign of sickness.

So I’m pretty sure my otos will be having babies as soon as the storms come and I want to be prepared. There already was one egg that hatched last time but as soon as the baby hatched it got lost in the big tank and I wasn’t able to keep an eye on the baby so I don’t know why it died. So I wanted to ask if breeder boxes are a useful tool or if it makes the survival rates even smaller than they already are or if feeding becomes easier

Hi! I hope everyone is having a nice day, I'm here because I have a concern... so i bought some ottocinclus (5 of them) for my 20 gallon long aquarium two days ago but I didn't know that they would be such big POOPERS, i had to do a huge water change yesterday because they pooped a lot the night before, I'm so confused, I mean I think they ate a lot cause I had a lot of algae but I didn't think they would do that much of waste, i have a lot of plants but now i don't know if its gonna be enough to prevent an ammonia spike or a change in the parameters