Otos always hiding...

My tank 2 months ago: 30g, planted, driftwood, river rocks, silvertip tetras and kuhlI loaches, established 1.5 years.

About 2 months ago I got 5 otos for my tank. For the first day they were hyperactive, rushing around, and eating voraciously (I let the tank get nice and dirty first). Then I lost one about a day in, but the other 4 were still going strong. About a week in I lost another, and around that time the remaining 3 started hiding a lot. I thought it may be due to the fact that they'd already cleaned up most of the algae, or they didn't like being such a small group. I do 50% water changes about every 1.5 weeks, nitrates top out at 20-40 max, and I feed a few slices of cucumber once a week or so. All otos are very fat, and I still see them eat infrequently. I've been waiting to drive the hour-and-a-quarter to the good fish store and finally did today. I brought home a school of black neons (I sold the silvertips two werks ago) and two new otos, who are rushing around while the old 3 ignore them and keep hiding. Are otos normally this reclusive? I like the little buggers, and it would be nice to see them out and about more!

Two otos hiding in their favorite spot...



Full tank shot...

 

Hmmm... The story is very similar to mine with Otos. I got 2 left, but they are both still out and about.
Your plant and decoration density is also similar to my tank. But I can see a difference in lighting. Your tank is brightly lit. My otos don't like it, when I set the light on a too bright level and stay mostly in spots with floating plants above them.

Quick troubleshoot:
What's your temp, pH, gh and kh? (ideal: <27°C, 6-7pH, <15°gh, <10°kh)
Do your nitrates regularly pass above 25ppm? (ideal below 20)
How long do you leave the lights on? (max 12h on low intensity, max 7-8 on high)
How strong is the waterflow in the tank? (they like some current, took me some time to set it to a good level)
Do you tamper with decorations often or do you take longer than an hour for weekly maintenance? (they really don't like humans messing around to much in their environment)

That's how mine hang out most of the time, although there are far better hiding spots. But no, they stay close to the leaflitter and the corner with the least direct light.

 

Otos are shoaling fish, and are normally very shy. They become less shy when you have more of them. I recommend keeping at least 6-8 but more is definitely better as they live in groups of many, many thousands in the wild (and they are usually wild-caught).

 

I have 8 of these and I can say hiding is in their nature when they aren't kept in the double digits. But my 8 are more active then when there were only 2.

 

Otos are shoaling fish, and are normally very shy. They become less shy when you have more of them. I recommend keeping at least 6-8 but more is definitely better as they live in groups of many, many thousands in the wild (and they are usually wild-caught).

Correct. My 2 are the survivors of originally 6. As I don't have any trustworthy source for Otos anymore I'll not stock up again soon. The thread-starter has 5. But I don't think it's the numbers in this case, tbh.

 

Hmmm... The story is very similar to mine with Otos. I got 2 left, but they are both still out and about.
Your plant and decoration density is also similar to my tank. But I can see a difference in lighting. Your tank is brightly lit. My otos don't like it, when I set the light on a too bright level and stay mostly in spots with floating plants above them.

Quick troubleshoot:
What's your temp, pH, gh and kh? (ideal: <27°C, 6-7pH, <15°gh, <10°kh)
Do your nitrates regularly pass above 25ppm? (ideal below 20)
How long do you leave the lights on? (max 12h on low intensity, max 7-8 on high)
How strong is the waterflow in the tank? (they like some current, took me some time to set it to a good level)
Do you tamper with decorations often or do you take longer than an hour for weekly maintenance? (they really don't like humans messing around to much in their environment)

I'll check parameters tonight, but it maxes out between 20 and 40 after a week and a half between water changes. There is no observable change in behavior immediately following water changes. I've never tested my gh or kh. Temp is 77.

The light is an old fluorescent, I don't remember what wattage, but on the lower side. No difference in behavior when the light is on or off. It's on for 8 hrs a day on weekends, but only 3-4 on week days.

Current is moderate on one end, but the rocks at the bottom and wood in the middle calms it down on the other end to be pretty mild.

About a month ago I scooted the two pieces of driftwood closer together, but that's the only rescape. I do water changes pretty quickly and only every 1.5 weeks.

Thanks for the help, everyone! My two newbies are still rushing around, and my 3 old ones are still hiding. Silly suckerfish.

 

I'll check parameters tonight, but it maxes out between 20 and 40 after a week and a half between water changes. There is no observable change in behavior immediately following water changes. I've never tested my gh or kh. Temp is 77.

The light is an old fluorescent, I don't remember what wattage, but on the lower side. No difference in behavior when the light is on or off. It's on for 8 hrs a day on weekends, but only 3-4 on week days.

Current is moderate on one end, but the rocks at the bottom and wood in the middle calms it down on the other end to be pretty mild.

About a month ago I scooted the two pieces of driftwood closer together, but that's the only rescape. I do water changes pretty quickly and only every 1.5 weeks.

Thanks for the help, everyone! My two newbies are still rushing around, and my 3 old ones are still hiding. Silly suckerfish.

You're welcome.

Allright, then. First measure, as you do your WCs quickly: Switch to weekly, so you get the nitrates further down. Just as a precaution. They really dislike above 25. Then they either get super twitchy or hide. Also turn up the flow. Try to find a current strength where your tetras are not affected yet.

The other parameters still would be interesting. If one of those is too high aswell this could be amplifying the reaction.

But the lighting times could also still be a thing. Are the lighting times a matter of energy saving? Or is that just so you can enjoy it more on weekends? I would guess the irregularity plus the time difference could have an effect, too. If it's not for energy saving reasons, maybe consider same hours continually each day of the week. I'd set it to 6h 7 days a week.

The rescape is too little change, WCs also fine then. I think those can be ruled out.

 

I'm not sure if this might help, but here's my really recent experience... from 30 mins ago.

At first I had otos in small, planted 30 litre community tank, with bright white LED light. They were always active, zipping around and schooling nicely. Then I bought bigger, 150 litre planted tank tank with bluish, weaker light, and since then I never seemed to find any of them. I even thought they died, but never found any bodies.

However, because plants didn't seem to do too well with this light, I got 2 LED 50W flood lights, and otos appeared again! They are flipping around, active, and behaving like they used to. They school again, swimming around the tank, seeming to play and have fun.

I have no idea why this happened, but seems strongly being related to light.

edit: typo

 

I had ottos too.
They started hiding, then in no time one of my ottos had a swollen stomach and died another one died in an accident.
Now, I don’t want to have them. Mine ottos weren't eating anything.

 

Otos are one of my favorite fish but sadly they are highly sensitive to tank condition and don't survive even well executed transfers with gradual acclimation and the like. I have a 120 gallon and 30 gallon and put otos in each. The initial introduction of new stock is a real roll of the dice, no matter how careful you are. Once they're in there and adapt they seem to do well, and further shrinkage of their #s are much less likely.

My little guys love to sit on broad leaf plants and munch away and have been invaluable in keeping plants clear of algae and other unwanted growth. They've got a relatively speaking low bio-load and don't require all that much space if you keep in numbers appropriate to your tank. I do make sure to have some bushy plants in the tank like star-grass and wisteria that they can hide in/under if they're not liking the light intensity per time of day.

Once settled I'd like to give a crack at breeding them in a pull out tank so if anyone has any advice or success stories let me know.

Pains me to say it but some casualties are difficult to prevent, but would say don't give up and take all precautions possible ref transitioning them and water quality and don't give up on them.

 

With otos, the first steps are to get them to survive 24 hrs, then a week, then a month. Once you are past a month or two you should be good.