Otocinclus Breeding

[James0816]

Thought I would share a shot of my little guys' latest effort. These were laid yesterday. Hatching expected tomorrow. Not easy to photograph, but worth the wait to get good developmental shots.

[MatsP]

Congratulations.

--
Mats

[beat89]

Nice...
What kind of otocinclus is?

[Richard B]

Well done - i look forward to seeing how things develop

[Mike_Noren]

Congratulations!
Any special things you did to induce breeding? What other fish are in the tank?

Also, could you manage a photo of the adults?

[James0816]

They've been breeding for getting close to a year now. Been studying a keeping records since the first batch of eggs. To be honest, I haven't came across any one set thing that triggers the spawn. Throughout the course of this project, the variables change from time to time which throws off my thinking. Been doing more research and searches on the web of late for more info on the different species. That's what got me here.

Another thing that is fascinating about this, is at first it was one batch once a month. Now mama is laying eggs an average of once every two weeks and had a stretch run where she laid a week a part. She's laid just over (30) this most recent batch.

As for tank mates, they keep company with some yellow shrimp, a brigg and ramshorn snail and some limpets. No other fish mates to reduce stress and potential loss of eggs. Strickly species only for fish.

My main goal now is to get a better success rate rearing the fry. I have about (50) juvenilles from previous batches. I have recently dedicated another tank for testing purposes to see if I get better results. Moved (4) eggs from this batch over here yesterday. I have one fry in there now who is just over three weeks old and has grown very well in there. Recent power outage took out all the other little fry. He managed to survive the cold temps. Getting close to moving him to the juvie tank.

I'm looking to expand my project to the O. Cocama currently. I have a breeding pair of what I believe are O. Macrospilus in a 20 high. No viable results as yet though. Will be dedicating a couple more 10g's to my efforts and eventually move them in one of these tanks.

Here is a pic of the parents. This pic is nearly a year old as well. Got a very nice pic of mom just the other day but haven't gotten it uploaded as yet.

[beat89]

Congratulations and good luck.
How do you know their gender?

[MatsP]

Congratulations and good luck.
How do you know their gender?

When in good condition, the female will be much fatter than the male.

--
Mats

[James0816]

As expected, hatching is on going.

Test tank: No good news. Two eggs went sour. The other two appeared to hatch but I can not find any sign of fry. Not saying they didn't make it, just didn't find any.

Main tank: Counted (11) wigglers. Most everybody is located in the back of the tank where lighting is poor so couldn't snap any pics. But then again...maybe play with the camera again see. Ground up some more veggie flakes and placed in the tank. Trying this time to ensure there are plenty fine particles around.

[Farid]

soon as they get read of the jolk sack maxbe check if you find them close to the current (on leaves or stuck on the glass)
! you should seperate them and feed them well in about 2-3 days...more vegi than meaty food!

good luck and hey congratulation!

farid

[Mike_Noren]

Here is a pic of the parents

That appears to be Otocinclus vittatus.

Thanks for your report. Yours is, I think, the first account of spawning Otocinclus I've seen where there haven't been spawning Corydoras in the same aquarium.

[lhafvens]

Recent power outage took out all the other little fry. He managed to survive the cold temps.

That must have been heartbreaking ... the little guy must be tough! I am in DC but was one of the lucky ones who didn't lose power during that last big storm. Was wondering what people do and whether there is some type of small generator that could at least keep the heater going. Your breeding project sounds very interesting. Thanks for sharing it.

[James0816]

Thanks. I am getting close to the year mark and keep journals on a couple other forums. If I found this site sooner, I could have been doing it here as well since this is a catfish site. The spawns seems to be pretty regular now. My main focus now is on getting better survival rates from the fry.

On a side note, I just did a very quick check of the tank and was able to count (4) little fry and found several more eggs.

[James0816]

Final check of the eve. Counted (57) eggs. (6) were not viable. Found (11) on one stem of L. Repens and moved it over to the test tank.

Surgically removed the bad eggs using a big needle. We'll see tomorrow afternoon if the number of good eggs stays up there.

[2wheelsx2]

Wow...nice effort on your part and the parents. I've always struggled with Otos myself, so it's nice to see someone with success and even breeding.

[bronzefry]

Keep up the good work! I only had one witnessed egg laying with Otocinclus sp., but it was never duplicated and no wrigglers survived. Probably because I had them in a community tank. I am able to keep them alive now for 7-8 years in a 75 gallon tank. I almost never see them, except when feeding. You are correct to keep them in a species tank to have them breed proper. Please keep us posted. Nicely done.
Amanda

[apistomaster]

Congratulations.
All my attempts at breeding common Otocinclus failed.
I did have one Parotocinclus spilosoma fry appear when I still had a group of 7.
Now I am trying the tiny Parotocinclus cf. epplyei but they are hard to keep let alone breed but hope springs eternal.

[James0816]

I can definately say at this stage in the project, the fry survival rate is my toughest. I'm hoping that moving eggs to the other tank will work. I'm intentially letting algae and diatoms grow in that tank for just this purpose. The hard part of it would be that mama lays most of her eggs in the crypt jungle. Can't just uproot a crypt plant and transfer it over. Have to find stems that have eggs on them.

I checked yesterday and found (4) bad eggs in the test tank and removed them. That leaves (7) viable at this time. If all turned out well, they should have started hatching last night. I will know more when I get home to hopefully find some fry in this tank. I have had as many as (10) in there once before but as mentioned the power failure resulted in the loss of all but one.

Over in the main tank, there were several more non viable eggs there as well. Had to seperate a few from good eggs. Didn't bother on getting a good count over there but looks like over (20) still good.

[apistomaster]

I mentioned I am keeping a group of about 15 Parotocinclus cf. eppyeli. They are far choosier about food than Otocinclus but it's possible that Otocinclus fry are comparable.
Before I ordered them I allowed the 20 long to develop a heavy growth of soft green algae. Despite the small size of this species, males about 3/4" and females about 1", it only took them about 3 day to polish the tank clean of the algae. Fortunately they took to eating Spirulina Sticks well but they would not eat the typical algae wafers nor will they touch earthworm sticks which I feed all my other pleco fry. The sticks soften to a mush within a few minutes in which form even fry can eat. I recommend giving them a try. They are the sole diet of my P. eppleyi. These small sucker mouth catfish have shown no interest in any garden vegetables, fresh blanched or cannned, although they do work over and demolish fallen dried Cherry Tree leaves once the leaves become water logged.
I know of 2 sources of these Spirulina sticks:
1) www.kensfish.com
2) www.aquaticeco.com

[James0816]

I do use the veggie sticks and flakes from kens. My Oto's and shrimp seem to really like them.

On the egg front....as expected...all hatched out. Found several little fry in the main tank. Over in the test tank..found (2) fry. Was very difficult to spot as expected as the tank is a diatom playground. Not made for visibility. Might be about a week before I learn how successfull it is.

[James0816]

So here's my teaser pic. Only pic that turned out well. This little guy is only a day old.

[MatsP]

I'd like these photos in the Cat-eLog... When you have a few days worth of photos, please send your best ones to me (mats at planetcatfish dot com, cc to webmaster [aka Jools]). Make sure you add your real name and put in the e-mail what your username is and what species of fish it is [I'm sure in this case, I'll be able to find the thread, but when you have a few dozen peoples photos, it can be hard to figure out which picture is what fish, etc].

--
Mats

[bronzefry]

Nice! I also use the same foods. As soon as I read the label with all the veggies in there, done deal. They seem to process it better, more slowly. It's the easiest way to get a lot of vegetable matter into a fish. Any idea where the pH and water hardness are?
Thanks,
Amanda

[James0816]

Mats, I have tons of photos from eggs to juvies since last March when this project first started. Even made a couple videos of the juvies in their tank swarming around.

Amanda, I do keep a nice log of water parameters which consist of the normal parms we all test for to also include GH, KH and TDS. I'm also tracking room temp, humidity and barometric pressure.

[James0816]

All continues to do well in both tanks.

Main: Still counted (15) wigglers today. A few of them are getting nice and pudgy. Guess adding the extra ground up flakes might be paying off.

Test: Found a third wiggler in here. Yay!! That now makes (4) in the tank. Three that are a couple days old and the one that is four weeks old. Might be a good sign here that the tank will support fry development.

[James0816]

Some shots from today. These guys are about 2 weeks old.

[L number Banana]

This is SWEET! Nice pictures too.
Please keep posting updates and any details you'd care to share about water parameters etc. Lots of gravid females went through my tanks but still no luck, Thanks so much for sharing - every little detail helps.

[MatsP]

I have received a zip-file with pictures. I will process them on Monday - I hope.

--
Mats

[James0816]

Water change Monday. Big test for the little fry guys. 20% changes across the board. Duckweed erradication still on going. Only find a few floating pieces here and there and they get removed when found.

Think I'm gonna fold up shop on the test tank and just convert it back. I haven't seen any fry for two days now. I would have thought under those conditions they would have done well. I don't know...maybe I'll keep it around for one more batch of eggs.

I'll post some water parm numbers after the water change stabilizes.

[James0816]

I was able to find (6) fry guys in the main tank yesterday. I think my test results on running the air stone full time may be inconclusive due to the survival numbers. May just revert back to the original setup of running the stone only at night.