Yellow Zebra Otocinclus Cocama

[waterfaller1]

Hi, I got five otocinclus cocama last week, and one is yellow. Have you ever seen one yellow?

yellow on left,regular on right


yellow



regular color

[andywg]

Hi,

When in top condition Otocinclus Cocama take on a darker colour with a blue sheen on top and a gold sheen on the lower areas. A sure fire way of telling when they are not doing so well is an obvious lighter tone of white/ivory and black striped pattern. However, I have never heard of a yellow toned one. Did it develop this colour after being introduced to your aquarium?Is it a result of something it is feeding on perhaps? How is the health of the other Otocinclus Cocama?

Kind regards,

Andy

[waterfaller1]

Hi Andy, It came to me this color. They all seem active, healthy, with nice round bellies. The seller had them several months.
I suppose you could call the color 'gold'.

[waterfaller1]

Fixed the spelling...

[Mike_Noren]

How yellow is it, though?

Adult healthy cocama have a warm beige base color with cinnamon stripes, young fish have more contrasty coloration but even they are not pure black and white.

Also it's hard to tell how yellow the yellow fish really is, as it is in a photo with different white balance than the normal colored one, and sitting in shade, illuminated by light reflected from plants and brownish rock and sand.

[waterfaller1]

Hi, I guess it's kind of a golden color. I noticed last night that one has very colorful sides,very irridescent. These are some really healthy looking fish. I will try to work on better pics, as they are starting to get more adventurous.

[andywg]

Hi,

I should have been more clear when I was trying to describe the tone of a healthy Cocama. The gold sheen I mentioned is more clearly observed under natural light, when the daylight hits my aquarium before the lights come on. Otherwise it is difficult to see. Similarly with the blue sheen along the sides. Like I said, I find they take on an overall darker brown tone when in prime condition as opposed to a contrasting black-white pattern of poor conditioned fish. My current stock, which I have only recently aquired, are beggining to come into top condition. My previous attempts were a few years ago when I found it very difficult to acclimatise them and keep them for any length of time: http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... lus#p87233

Kind regards,

Andy

[apistomaster]

Hi Andy,
It's nice to see Otocinclus coma looking so well and the Golden specimen is most interesting.
Two weeks ago I bought all 5 O. cocama my LFS had, my first specimens, and now I have zero O.cocama.
It is still hard to find them and even harder to find healthy specimens. I gave mine a well established 10 gal tank for their quarantine tank. It has been set up months with only a wild pair of Betta smaragdina I was trying to spawn and I had allowed the algae to grow by leaving the lights on most of that time. Even so, one died every other day. I was hoping they would have a good chance of acclimating and if they did well, I planned to get 10 more. Not going to happen. They cost me $10 each and I'm not up for another beating.
They are such a lovely Otocinclus species and I'm glad to see yours are doing so well.
Why the one is so colorful is a mystery. It is an especially attractive specimen.
BTW, I've been meaning to ask you what is the ID of the pleco in your avatar photo?

[waterfaller1]

Were you talking to me? I'm sorry you had trouble getting healthy ones. I too had a bad experience on my first go around. I ordered 17 of them,for a friend and I to split. They began dieing right away. I paid well over $200. for them, and I felt bad that my friend had to drive over two hours for nothing, so I let him take the living ones. He was supposed to get 11, but only 3 of 17 lived. I got nothing.
So, I was happy to get these from another seller, who had them set up in a tank with some coral red pencilfish breeders.The fish in my avatar is L038 plecs~Peckoltia sp. "Zwerg". I am getting three tomorrow! They only grow to just over 2", perfect for me!