Tazmiche

I have been longing for some Otocinclus catfish for some time. In my region of the UK many fish stores have looked at me and said 'DUH what are they?' BUT by chance my mum was in the store in which i had bought my first tank and fish, buying supplies and just mentioned the name casually and they had 5!!!!

I now have 3 and they are so sweet.

Questions... I researched them ALOT before finding them but any tips? and how do you sex them? 2 stay together at front of tank, one alone at back is slightly chunkier! Store was great, told me all i had read on here except i was such a nerd and excited i forgot the sexing question.

They are in the Asbo tank, well planted with places to chill/hide. All seemed ok at lights out.* * *SOOO chuffed i have them, soooo cute in real life!!

COBettaCouple

as far as sexing otos go.. i don't even try.. i'm not sure of a reliable way.. the females are supposed to be bigger so that one alone at the back might be female.

Tazmiche

ty. Store said that too but this site is soooo good i thought i might find out one day!!??

atmmachine816

Congratulations

COBettaCouple

unfortunately a lot of cats have little or no easy visible signs of gender like livebearers.

griffin

Congratulations

i think it's easier to tell when they're older, but difficult to determine in general. usually the females are fatter, but you could have a fat male and skinny female too. pretty inconclusive. unless, of course, you're one of the lucky ones who sees them laying eggs. then the one laying the eggs is female :P

armadillo

You really make me laugh with your ASBO tank!

One think to mention about otos is that they are really sensitive to acclimation method. I'd use the drip method. Might be too late, though, as I imagine they're not still floating in their plastic bags at the time of writing!

Your mom is cool to go to fishstores AND remember fish names.

Gwenz

I know what u meen. I went to the pet store and asked about them and they just said "Um I don't know but we have some big ones you could have" (which were acctualy plecos) lol and when i said no he looked at me and said "I think your making them up" lol I just walked out!



Gwenz

armadillo

Finally one thing we get in Holland and that's difficult to get somewhere else. I had no problem getting mine. Trying to get Prime or an API test kit on the other hand...

COBettaCouple

I always find it encouraging when a pet store or fish store has no clue what a fish is..

armadillo

Hurrray, my oto is finally eating.

He finally understood that cucumber was food. I'd introduced 2 of them to my recently cycled tank (so very little algae), and was getting worried as they didn't have round bellies (otos are supposed to have round bellies. Also, they're supposed to always have a poop hanging behind them). After 3 attemps of putting cucumber (and removing it 24h later), I decided to leave one for more than 24h to soften. That's when they understood it! Hurray, hurray, hurray!

Gwenz, tellling you this to save you the pain!

COBettaCouple

congrats!

i'm curious, what happens if you soften up the slice by giving it a short run in the microwave?

armadillo

Worth a try, although I don't really like to use my microwave. I kind of leave it be.

COBettaCouple

If you stand in front of it, maybe you can get spidey powers.

armadillo

Long story. My mother in law is a pseudo scientist cross hippy. Verrry bad mix. She wrote cellular biochemistry research articles, but she carries a lucky crystal around her neck... Anyway, she's read that microwave ovens break down the cellular structure of food to the extent that most nutritive value disappears from it. Or something.

armadillo

But then again there IS the crystal around the neck so not too sure how good a source she is.

COBettaCouple

lol.. my science classes taught me that microwaves are very small and heat the food by agitating the water in the food. Other substances can be heated as well as microwaves can agitate more than just water molecules.

armadillo

Fine, but did you look around your teacher's neck? He could also be in the urban myth spreading sect!