cuteusagi

Hi All!!

I had 2 otos for about 1 month, and very suddenly, they both died (1 day apart). I did water tests, and the water chemistry was pristine (0 ammonia, 0 nitrate, 0 nitrite). They have been very healthy and happy (swimming, eating, pooping, etc.) since we got them, and there is plenty of food for them in the tank. They were always eating and pooping!! I know they are not the hardiest of fish, and was just wondering if anyone knew of anything that could have caused both to go at the same time. All the other fish are very healthy and happy as far as I can tell...

Thanks Oto Experts!

jsalemi

Otos seem to either live a long time, or die in the first month, for no rhyme or reason. They're just not terribly hardy fish.

armadillo

Hi Cuteusagi. Otos are fragile in three ways, which gives them their justified reputation as fragile fish:

• no regular food source,
• stress
• water quality.

regular eating
If they go without algae or some sort of vegetable matter for as long as a couple of days, this can kill their digestive bacteria which would make them unable to digest even when the fasting is over.

You'd know it's likely if when they died they belly was quite sunken in and if they didn't constantly have a poop hanging off them.

water quality
I wonder about the 0 0 0 test results. I wonder if your kit could be inaccurate? This is all in the spirit of finding out what's happened, you know, not having a dig or anything. I know how frustrating it is to loose fish and not quite know why.

stress
Were there a lot of heavily planted areas in your tank? They tend to do better when they have densely bushed areas to retreat in.

Were they comfortable swimming around the tank or constantly hiding?

How big a school of otos did you have? They're really stressy if kept with less than 5 compadres.

Stress can also be caused by invasive or loud maintenance routines; or too drastic changes betwen the old and the new water (pH, temp, etc.). Could that be it?

If they were turning gradually paler and paler in the end, then it could be that stress is what's happened.

cuteusagi

Armadillo,

Thanks for the helpful info!! If anything, it might have been from changing around the plants/rocks before our last water change. We use a python to do our water changes, and we try to do it pretty quick to keep everyone from stressing out. We do have quite a bit of plants, and the otos mostly liked hanging around the Wisteria and sometimes the Java Fern as well. Before the first oto died, we had just replanted our Java Fern, which might have made them unhappy.

After the first oto died, we watched the second one very closely. He was not pale, and was always eating and pooping . There is plenty of food in the tank, and even after both died, their bellies had not sunken in. Not only that, but our corys love oto poop!

As far as swimming, the first oto swam around quite a bit (but not in a frenzied way) and was quite comfortable. The second oto didn't swim as much, but would swim casually from one buffet to another. Niether oto was very shy and we enjoyed watching them! We only had the 2 of them, so perhaps that was the cause. Our LFS said that they should do fine with just the two of them...

We also used to have a school of zebra danios that they both swam around with occasionally, but the danios were causing some major issues with our other fish and their eating habits. In the end, we donated them back to our lfs, but that was quite some time ago.

Hope this helps!!

armadillo

I see you like thorough posts too, LOL!

That's weird, isn't it, them dying like that.

Stress/water quality/food are the usual causes, but they sounded really relaxed, well fed and clean. I don't think they'd die from not having a school. They'd die of the stress of not having a school, at a push, but they were not acting stressed.

So it's not the food, not the stress, not the water quality. I don't get it. Sounds like a perfect environment for otos.

COBettaCouple

the same thing happened with our otos..