chickadee

I woke up this morning and will have to admit to being a little low with the death of Jasmyn and my Mom being sick and not having a nice sunny day, but then I looked in Alex's tank and there were little things swimming all over the bottom of the tank and eating off the bottom. Now I clean my tanks a couple times a week so I don't think they have "cooties", so I believe I have FRY. I do not know of but one time of having heard of Otocinclus breeding in captivity but since Alex is alone in the tank and has not been "bubblenesting" nor introduced to any of his sisters, it has to be offspring of Dopey and Dingbat who are indeed Otocinclus. I am still in shock!

This does create me a whale of a problem because the tank is not going to be big enough for hundreds of little otos and a couple parents and a very feisty little betta,(who so far is very curious but doing a very nice job of behaving himself). I do not have any way of getting a bigger tank and so I guess that my little man will have to be moved and I will have to honestly pray that not all of my little offspring make it (sounds bad I know but I really do not want to have to cull them myself).

I took a picture but they are soooo tiny. I put a wafer in the tank and they flocked onto it so you can see some bumps on top feeding.

Rose

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chickadee

Okay so I got a little over enthusiastic. At last count the best I could do there are about 45 of them not hundreds.

Rose

LilaBean

yeah!!! congratulations!! 45 is better than none!!! LILA

Butterfly

Rose that is so amazing!!!! i bet your LFS would take some when tehy get bigger.
Carol

Gunnie

Wow Rose! That is amazing! It's very rare to breed otos in captivity! WOO HOO!

chickadee

I cannot take any credit. It was as much a surprise to me as it was to anyone else. I am not sure what it was that promoted it or how the little guy and girl accomplished it without alerting their Betta roomie. I am trying to find a place to somehow move Alex but haven't had a bit of luck. Every single thing I have is either being sterilized or full of other males or females. (and I do not want to take any chances with the trouble I just had with Jasmyn with moving him into a tank I am not sure of.) So I guess I am going to have to just say a prayer for the little guys and hope that they do okay for tonight.

Rose

Butterfly

So Dopey and Dingbat had babies.... hummm..... Rose is there a place at www.otocinclus.com to let somebody know you have oto fry? That would be cool!
Carol

chickadee

Well I have a problem this morning, I cannot find them! I checked the filter as I did not have a chance to get my tanks changed over to the sponge filters as the new gravel for the new substrate just came Saturday and I found them Sunday morning and my life has been nuts the last week. I changed the water 50% yesterday but was careful not to get them into the water. Is it possible that my filter ate them and I just cannot find them. The reason I did not worry too much about it is the intake tube was quite a ways from them and the flow is very gentle on a bio-wheel. Of course there is always Alex....! They were just starting to look like little fish. I feel so terrible.
I think I will at least send the site Administrator what pictures I did get and tell him what happened and see what he says. He may not want to credit it but maybe those tow crazy little fishes will do it again. I wonder if it was the spring water as it was totally ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate free, no phosphates and as clear as I could get, and I have given them vitamins every day I have had them.

Rose

Butterfly

The admin would love to know about your spawning As tiny as they are there are probably some hiding somewhere in there. Just keep an eye out.
Carol

skippi

WOW congrats rose that is awesome.. I hope you find them again. will keep my fingers crossed for you

Heidi

chickadee

I pulled the Bio-wheel and put a sponge filter in with some Bio-spira, but there is not one sign of any of the babies and I am afraid Alexander is looking entirely too pleased with himself. Can I possibly have harboured a cannibal? I have not given up total hope but it is getting hard to see where they could be as there is no response to the food. But there are so many hiding places in the tank, so.... hmmm....

What ever is meant to be, but I sure did like the looks of them little wrigglers.

Rose

Butterfly

Not to worry Rose, If they did it once they'll do it again
Carol

chickadee

I did send the information to Paul Apgar at http://otocinclus.com and am waiting to see if I hear back from him. It would be so good to hear from him. I sent all the tank conditions and then of course went ahead and changed them all since I want to change the things to make a good clean change on the substrate due to the fact that the cleaner was not doing a good job and the sludge was building up badly. I made a thinner layer and put less plants in. Believe it or not I am seeing more of the Otos than I have in months. They are active and seem to be happy. Yes I do believe they will do it again as they do seem to care about each other. You hardly ever see one without the other one.

Rose

0morrokh

That's so awesome. You know, even though you can't find them, I be a couple of the fry are hiding out somewhere. That's what happened when my Guppy had babies without me even knowing it...until I suddenly noticed there were four Guppies in the tank instead of two!

chickadee

No I completely redecorated the tank when I put in the sponge filter and there were no little ones in there although I did put the plants directly into the water in another tank when I removed them just in case. They were gone. I am just hoping that they get in the mood again one of these days as I am keeping the water parameters the same and all the conditions the same and so I am hoping for the repeat performance and you better believe Mr Alexander will be out of there and into the quarantine tank as soon as possible.

I wrote to the Otocinclus website Administrator and he has written me back several times already asking for the details and has gotten the link for this Board so perhaps he may have a drop in if we are lucky one of these days. I hope so.

Rose

atmmachine816

If your worried about them getting sucked up then get a bag they sell for aqua clear filters, cut it to fit your intake tube and you'l be good to go. It cost me 3$ for two bags or you can use another sort of mesh.

Congratulations on the fry

austin