Zebra otocinclus spawning behavior

[Deca]

Have you thought about breeding Parotocinclus haroldoi (Galaxy otocinclus) or maybe the Panda Garra ,new challenge for you

[papgar]

Have you thought about breeding Parotocinclus haroldoi (Galaxy otocinclus) or maybe the Panda Garra ,new challenge for you

I see some different Paraotocinclus species in the stores every once in a while. I don't know... if I end up getting more tanks (big IF) my next species might be the more common oto variety for bragging rights. Panda Garra is an interesting fish I saw a tankful of them recently and never saw them before. Sounds like they need special tank with high flow of water though.

As a LONG update to the Zebra Otos:
I have some mixed news. Over 2 months ago I put 10 juveniles in my main 29 gallon planted tank which had the 6 adults still breeding. Breeding continued for another week or two but eventually stopped with some unfertilized batches of eggs. This is where the bad news is. For reasons (poor maintenance) I obtained a large hair algae bloom, which the Otos DO NOT eat at all and in fact they avoid surfaces that have it. I tried to keep ahead of it, cleaning plants, glass, and eventually trying to starve it out with less light and nutrients. I must have erred in some way or gone too far with water parameters because I ended up then getting blue-green algae that covered a lot of glass and hindered plant growth. I tried various chemicals to get rid of it and eventually (as of this week) I am now rid of it. What I did besides chemicals was large water changes, reduce light a bit but not extremely, and increased the water flow with a new larger AquaClear filter. The increased flow is necessary because I have a forest of bacopa plants and water flow was terrible in many parts of the tank. I blame that for blue-green algae taking root.

During these weeks of ugly tank syndrome I believe I lost half of the juveniles. I only see 3 or 4 now. I think they weren't getting enough to feed on or were more used to repashy which I wasn't using a lot of at the time. Or maybe the blue-green was toxic in some way. What was even more concerning was I thought I had lost some (or most!) of the adults as I could only see 1 or 2 at a time in the weeks the tank was having these algae problems. But I'm happy to report that I was able to finally count all 6 today after the tank cleared itself up, they were eating well and didn't look sickly, and we should be in good shape hopefully they will start breeding again in a few weeks.

When they are unhapppy they must hunker down and not be very active, it's amazing how well they can hide in a planted 29 gallon. I was REALLY trying to see more than 1 or 2 at a time and unable to until they all came out to finally eat in a cleaner tank. I had honestly lost hope.

I also have 7 juveniles in the 10 gallon "grow out" tank which is a bare tank with some pots but not much else. Feeding with repashy and zucchini these guys are growing really well. Actually better growth than the juveniles in the 29 gallon heavily planted tank which they are outpacing. The largest one now is about 1.25 inches which is pretty much the smaller size of what you would see wild caught in the store. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing in the 10 gallon, which is feed repashy/zucchini regularly and do large 50% water changes every 2-3 days cleaning up the bottom glass.

[sturiosoma]

So far I have found a total of 5 fry. They seem to eventually move up toward the surface. In the breeder tank they are almost all up near the surface now. Should be interesting trying to get them to feed. I took some nice closeup video of the fry from underneath and on the side. I would say they are about 6-7mm now. Enjoy!

To get my sturios to get off the walls of the breeder box I drain all but an inch of the water and then add my soup mix they have no choice but to go to the bottom and feed and then I allow the box to refill slowly with tank water.

Jeanne

[Jools]

Coming to this thread late, nice work and I see you've added BLog data too. Nice one!

Cheers,


Jools

[papgar]

Here is a pic of the 10 gallon grow out tank. Still has some green water and pic is after a water change. The sides are filthy with film and these tiny white paramecium shaped worms which chased the detritus worms away (or ate them). Hopefully when the otos are bigger they will eat these critters too? They have been ignoring the almond leaf.

Juveniles really gravitate towards the zucchini above all other foods from what I've seen. These 7 are probably 1.25 inches at this point and seem happy.