PlanetCatfish.com

Hello, about 8 months ago I added 4 Otocinclus vestitus to my soft water 20g planted aquarium. One died the first day. Another died several months later. The third died a couple weeks ago and the lone survivor looks bad. I think number 1 died from the stress of the move and looked to be in good body condition AD. The second died for no apparent reason but was pretty chewed up by the crystal shrimp by the time I finally found it. Number 3 looked extremely emaciated and number 4 looks this way too. I have offered a variety of algae wafers but they will not eat off of them and I end up siphoning out the debris the next day. My otto's appear to be starving is there anything else I may be missing. There are neon tetras in with them. Unfortunately, they did not come from a great source - Pet Co. Could this be a reason?

I'd say you need to find some food that they like. Algified stones (leave stones under water in the sunshine, should be no problem in Florida) would be one solution (you may need to add some liquid plant food for pot-plants or some such to give the algae some nutrition).

You may also want to try some other algae wafers (I find my fish only eat certain types).

And finally, several members here have suggested zucchini (courgette for those on the that has been lightly boiled and then left for about 24 hours in the tank. Start with a tiny amount so to not pollute the tank.

And bear in mind that fish make take a few days to figure out a new food, so don't give up as soon as you try something.

If the fish survives the first couple of weeks, it's most likely NOT the shops fault.

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Mats