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July 8th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| Oto ok?
Hi..... I just came back from a LFS and I got three otos. Being stupid and not thinking I just dumped them into my tank. Will they be ok? | 
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July 8th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| Quote:
Originally Posted by matt6765  Hi..... I just came back from a LFS and I got three otos. Being stupid and not thinking I just dumped them into my tank. Will they be ok? | Otos tend to be a bit sensitive, so you might run into problems if they weren't acclimated properly.
Make sure your tank water is pristine and you provide enough of the right kinds of food. Hopefully they'll survive. | 
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July 8th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| Quote:
Originally Posted by mathas Otos tend to be a bit sensitive, so you might run into problems if they weren't acclimated properly.
Make sure your tank water is pristine and you provide enough of the right kinds of food. Hopefully they'll survive. | Oh my..... do you think they will die? | |
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July 8th, 2009
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| | Moderator
| is this your new tank you are cycling for your betta matt? | |
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July 8th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawnie is this your new tank you are cycling for your betta matt? | no it is my 26 gallon one.... | |
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July 8th, 2009
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| | Moderator
| ahh ok...im with mathas and we can all just hope for the best  | |
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July 8th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| ok thank you both for your help | |
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July 8th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| Quote:
Originally Posted by matt6765 Oh my..... do you think they will die? | It's possible. I've read of otos dying in ideal circumstances, for no apparent reason.
One theory has to do with starvation during transit and gastric bacteria: Quote:
Otocinclus are notorious for dying like, well, like Otos,—when you first get them home, though once they've acclimated to your planted tanks they live for years. Aquarists beat themselves up over this, but I think it's not our fault. Here's the thing: no vertebrate vegetarian can digest cellulose, not one! so each carries a species-specific community of anaerobic bacteria (and some protozoans) that do the work. Ruminants even have a special fore-stomach (the rumen) where grass is fermented in a rich bacterial soup, protected from stomach acids. Dairy cows are nourished, not so much by grass, but by bacterial by-products, which include some vitamins, and by digesting some bacteria: cow breath! Now, look at the size of the Oto. Scarcely room for a billion gut bacteria in there to do the work, eh? Starved Otos in transit can lose so much of their gut bacteria that the internal ecosystem doesn't revive,— even with a glut of tasty algae in your tank! It just passes through their system, like when you were too hasty eating that corn-on-the-cob, remember? Not much nutrition when the kernels passed right through, because your system couldn't digest them open. Otos need a jungley tank with lots of leaf surfaces to run over. (If you can count your Otos, you haven't got enough plants.) But the vegetable supplement we give them (zucchini, spinach, etc.) has to be constant, or else they won't have the gut bacteria to process the green treat when it finally does arrive. Hopefully with your algae, and plenty of natural green cover, and your constant feedings of spirulina flakes or algae wafers plus veggies every few days, Otos that aren't too far gone should thrive with you. Females are noticeably wider and plump, but though a healthy male is leaner, he shouldn't have a concave look, when seen from the side.
SegaDojo recently offered the suggestion that Otos might be unusually sensitive to nitrate. That might go far to explain Otos' sensitivity. "As a rule," G. Sterba wrote in 1967 (in Aquarium Care, p. 257) "newly imported wild-caught fish from tropical waters poor in nitrate and nitrite are particularly sensitive."
| If they survive an abrupt change in water parameters, pristine water and special attention paid to their diet may be the keys to keeping them alive. | |
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July 8th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| ok again thank you | |
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July 8th, 2009
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| | Fish Keeper
| UPDATE: ok so I just looked in the tank and I see two otos eating algae ( the third on most be hiding). Any way.... they look ok | |
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