PlanetCatfish.com

Hi all

We didn't intentionally start to breed them. Our panda cories started one weekend and the following weekend the otos started. We didn't feed them anything special. We noticed two females were really swollen and then they just started.

1. Goes without saying, never put otos in a new tank. Our community planted tank had been established for over 4 months when we got our otos. Our tank had lots of algae and with all plecos, a bit of bogwood.

2. Have a breeding group of at least 5, as they like company. They seem to like a certain type of green leaf plant. We found hygropolysperma to work for us.

3. Let them get really fat, not too much tank maintenance, let the nitrates and TDS's build up.

4. Get yourself a phosphate remover. Don't use any phosphate remover or charcoal before this stage. We use NO-PHOS by Advanced Aquatics which rapidly removes phosphates and nitrates. And like most plecos and corydoras start doing 30% water changes every 3-4 days. This should bring on spawning in a few days. Our tank stats before this stage, our NO2- 0PPM, NO3- 20-30PPM, GH 9, KH 4, PHOSPHATES(PO4) 5-10ppm our water in Derby has high PO4, ph 7 and temp 26C. AFTER changes NO3 down to 5ppm and near untraceable PO4.

5. Once the pair spawn, they lay between 2-6 eggs. They lay them on the underside of the hydropolysperma and we wait till they've laid, then remove the leaf. We already had a breeding net in our fry tank with panda cory fry and eggs. The breeding net is in a good flow. Luckily for us, the breeding net was full of algae, plenty food for oto fry. The parents spawned every 7-10 days. We have a 60% survival rate at the moment. We have definately observed 2 females spawning with the male during the spawning day. They normally start in the morning, and go all day into the evening.

6. As for how they spawn, typical cory fashion. The eggs take 48 hours to hatch and are smaller than cory eggs, although similar in appearance. The fry take about a day to absorb a HUGE egg sac, in comparison to their size. They then are free swimming, either stuck to the side of the breeding net, on a leaf or skimming the water. I do feed our panda fry microworms 3 times daily, so the oto fry may be eating some of this too. As soon as they are about 7-10 days old, I release them into the fry tank where they grow at an alarming rate.

Their tank mates are 5 panda and 5 sterbai cories, 2 angels, 2 Queen Arabesques, 1 baby albino BN, 5 harlequin, 5 white cloud mountain minnows, 3 Red Whiptails, 9 cardinals and a lone molly (from our livebearer days). Oh, and 5 Japonica/Amano shrimp.

I can't take all the credit, hubby organized all the tank requirements and parameters. My job is looking after the eggs and rearing the young. Hope this helps you all, if you can add to it, let us know.

As for type, not too sure. They all seem to look very similar. I am leaning towards mariae.

The parents spawning

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The eggs


Newly hatched fry
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2 Day old fry


4 Day old fry
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16 Day old fry


2 Month old fry
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We have put some of the older fry into our community tank and they have almost reached the size of the parents. They are now 3 and a half months old. They have been a joy to watch grow, especially at the rate they grow.

And finally, our community tank, where all the "action" takes place.



And our fry tank
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Hope those who wish to breed them find some useful info here.

Thanks

The breeding pics are wonderful. I have a feeling I have 10 Otos in a 75 gallon. In that group, there's a pair that's been going at it for a few months, but I can't get at the eggs(about half the size of Corydora eggs?)I'm certain the Corydoras are eating the eggs. What time of day do you notice the breeding?
Amanda

Thanks Amanda

Our otos normally start in the morning, right when I decide to feed the fish. They are a bit difficult to get to, having to remove the entire leaf, normally pretty low leaves. Once our pandas realize they are spawning, they follow them around eating the eggs. The otos eat some too, as well as the cardinals.

Loads of people have said they started off with 5 and now have 6 otos. So I don't think breeding is unheard of, just not always caught, plus raising the fry is the difficult part. Having enough algae to sustain them till they can be released is pretty difficult.

Although it isn't unheard of, it is NOT common for otos to breed in aquaria, and even rarer that the owner notices, and rarer still that he takes pictures!

Congrats!

I congratulate you on your success and fine photos. Your photos and those of another member's of the fry at about 1 month old are some of the more interesting or at least I should say my favorites. I love the way they are miniature replicas of the adults. Very cool. I have a couple of Paraotocinclus species I hope to have spawn. I think it is no coincidence that they spawn about the same time as the Corydoras. So many have reported the same thing. Also the slacking off on routine maintenance and then resumption seems like a technique that works well with the SA catfish. Another thing you did by using the phosphate remover reminds me of what works well for me, I take a similar approach but I use SeaChem's Purigen resin and that seems to trigger spawning. Isn't it too bad we can't isolate and bottle the pheromones released by the spawning fish so we could induce spawns at will?
Larry

Fantastic set of pictures!!!
Makes me want to give Otocinclus a go
Shaun

I think the Otos maybe breeding at the same time as the Corydoras. I thought the Corydoras were laying smaller eggs. Now I know when I take the eggs out of the tank, I need to separate them from the Corydora eggs and feed them algae instead of baby brine shrimp!
Amanda

Nice pics... Congratulations on the spawn, ,and thanks for sharing.

Best regards.

Daniel.

Hi!. It's been a long time but I just read this and the pictures are gone. Does anybody have them? Thx in advance.

You may want to send a PM to the author of the post. I had a look at Photobucket, and it seems like they are not there any more - I don't know if photobucket is one of those sites where photos aren't permanent, or if the user deleted them because of lack of space, or something else.

--
Mats

I use photobucket, and as far as I know the photos remain hosted until the user deletes them- space on the free version used to be quite limited, but it's been expanded quite a bit now; however, I still know members who do run out of space and have to delete some.

I have photos on photobucket for over 5 years now

But I only have say 60 in my account, so no reason to delete any

Thanks for the advices.