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Hi,

I have 85L/22G community tank with 5 otocinclus, 5 pencil fish and a pair of blue rams. The rams are spawning.

Will the otos eat the eggs and fry?

Thanks,
Allan

harsmann wrote: The rams are spawning. Will the otos eat the eggs and fry?

I don't think so, because the Rams will defend their eggs and offspring. Besides, I don't think otos are carnivorous.

your rams are usually pretty good at looking after the eggs but you could play it on the safe side and put the rams into a tank on their own to increase their chances of sucess.some cichlid breeders use what is known as dither fish to make sure the parents act as they would in the wild and protect their young.

I've also had 5 Oto's whilst my Ram's were spawning. With 3 or 4 spawns it was never a problem, nor did I ever expect it to be. As was said above _Cichlids are very defense with thier brood.

I've never seen an Oto take any interest in food other than algae. And given how much effort the _Cichlids go to cleaning up the site, there is simply nothing there to interest them.

It was usually the other fish in my tank I was concerned about.

I've observed Otos eating a few small worms(tubifex)and daphnia. I haven't observed them eating Corydora eggs. I haven't had any experience with Rams. Sounds like a lovely tank.
Amanda

Thanks for your replies - I look forward to see ram fry growing up in the tank. However, it didn't happen this time. I think the parent Rams ate the eggs themselves - apparently this isn't unusual for inexperienced Ram parents. I'll just wait and see. In the mean time I have Peppered Corys laying eggs in another tank...

You may want to try siphoning up a few of the ram eggs to hatch separately.

Like yourself, I never saw any result from the tank. The eggs I siphoned did hatch, but I was totally unprepared for the small size of the fry, so for those that didn't escape through my mesh, I didn't have the appropriate food.

I too, ahve never had an issue with my rams keeping otocinclus at bay. However, they WILL eat the eggs if they ever get a chance; I have noticed both the manifold next-to-unidentifiable commonplace stripey species and flexilis will readily feast on corydoras eggs.