Shaina

Well, after looking for a few weeks, I finally got my hands on 3 seemingly healthy Otos: as far as I can tell they have roundish bellies, no red streaks, etc. So they are sitting in my tank in their little bag slowly acclimating.

It was too late to pick up zucchini or cucumbers from the store, so I'm hoping that resisting the temptation to scrub off the diatoms will pay off by giving them ample food until tomorrow when I can pick up veggies in hopes of fattening them up.

I'm so nervous about these guys, since everyone says they are so delicate. It doesn't help that my pH is 8.0 and the store's is ~7.2...this is going to be a long slow process.

Wish me luck guys!

Shaina

Well I saw two for sure this morning before I left -- didn't have time to look around for the third. The two I did see were happily slurping up algae on a big piece of vertical shale though, so hopefully that's a good sign. They'll get their first veggie dinner when I get home tonight. Blanched veggies, anyone?

Hopefully #3 is still with us :-/. Kinda worried about him, since he was looking kinda pale by the time I got him home.

sirdarksol

The important thing is to keep the water quality excellent. They're sensitive little fish.
However, if you do so, they're wonderful little fish.

Congratulations on joining the club.

Shaina

Thanks

I'm try to keep my water as perfect as I can. Once I finally tracked down some Otos I checked my water parameters again right before and they looked like normal (0,0,5-10). My high pH worries me though, so I acclimated them over 3 hours, first temperature then slowly adding a bit of tank water.

They are such cute like guys...I'm really trying not to kill them! Doesn't help that they are in an itty bitty 10 gal right now, while my 29 gal gets going...

Shaina

Well I can still only find 2 of the three, despite gently turning over various rocks, plants, etc. It's such a small tank I didn't think I could lose one. Check around the tank and in the filter too, just in case he escaped, but didn't find anything. So either he's a master of disguise or my remaining snails ate his body. My 48 hour return limit is fast approaching though, so I'm really trying to confirm what happened to him.

The other two look agitated but otherwise okay, so far.

sirdarksol

I lost one oto and never saw it again, but I also would lose otos for days at a time, and then they'd show up again. They're expert hiders.

voiceless_kat

I was scared spitless when I first got my otos...after reading how delicate they are. i forged ahead, had one in with a betta, who was a pirate and a renegade (Wink Jack Sparrow) Wink ate the eyes out of one of them. So I pulled them and put them into my guppy fry grow out tank( which is now a small tetra tank), and then bought more for my 55g - which has well water that is like liquid rock. I keep the water good in all tanks, feed veggies every second day , and have been rewarded with them scurrying around both tanks happily.
And the little blind guy lives on - just amazing, but he is fine, and obviously has a strong will to live, . His tummy isn`t as fat as the others, but he is seemingly healthy.

Keep your water clean, feed those veggies, and you will do fine. And if they don`t make it and you still want them, just start over!!!! Who knows the horrors they withstand during shipping , poor little mites!

Good luck.

Val

sirdarksol

Good news is that otos eat more by sense of smell and taste than sight.
Glad the little guy keeps plugging along.

Shaina

voiceless_kat: That's one determined Oto! Thanks for the advice -- I am basically surrounding them with food at the moment so they have their choice of whatever they want to fill their bellies.

I still haven't seen the third one (there's a bigger one, a medium one, and a smaller one -- the smaller one is AWOL). The other two are hanging out today too, which makes me even more worried for #3. Hopefully like your guys' Otos he will just magically reappear soon.

The other two are shunning veggies in favor of diatoms at the moment (a decision I am happy to support). As long as they are eating I'm happy. I'll probably pick up a few more this weekend as well.

Shaina

Well I finally found #3, and he was gone :-(. I did get two more though (since I want 4 in my 29 gal), and all 4 are now swimming happily around. Overnight they eliminated a good 1/2 of the brown algae I had saved for them, and took a decent chunk of the zucchini I provided as well -- I've seen all 4 on the cucumber so I'm hoping they are all happy and healthy.

AggieYen

Can I just say, I am SO envious that you guys are able to get otos so easily. I've searched far and wide Down Under, and I've always JUST missed the last couple of otos, or they haven't had them in for a while. Then when I went home to Malaysia (where I'm from originally) - I walked into the pet store and found an entire tank of otos. Almost 20-30 of them. I nearly sobbed, like a child, right there, in the store. If I could bag them up and ship them back to Australia with me, I would have.

sirdarksol

They're only available here for a few months out of the year, as they are caught wild, and may only be harvested during certain times of the year (presumably to avoid damage to the breeding cycle, though I'm not positive about this).

Shaina

It took me about two weeks of calling around and visiting places to track some down. The first place I found them, the fish were actually mislabeled CAEs. Even when I found them I really can't add more than 3 fish at a time to my 10 gal, aged though it is, so I just got three -- when one died I figured I was sunk since that store doesn't normally carry them, and wasn't planning on getting them again.

Then yesterday I went to Petsmart for some dog shampoo, and lo and behold they had Otos, and a 14-day guarantee! They didn't have any the week before, nor had the woman then even heard of them. Yesterday was a good day