"Attack Otos"?

[Mike_Noren]

A while back I ran into something I thought I'd ask about: I think my otos killed quite a few of my fish.

I bought two Otocinclus (vittatus? looked like it, but who knows) for my 160 L tank, and was really happy with them - they did their job without being annoyingly boisterous and hyperactive like the siamese algae eaters I also had.
However, as the tank matured, the algae disappeared. Zero algae.

I tried to feed the otos, as they didn't eat the ordinary fish food like the SAE's did, but the SAE's saw to that they never got to eat from the peas, cucumbers etc by jealously guarding any food I placed in there.

Then fish started dying. Every other morning, I found another fish dead, always with an oto sucking on the corpse. At fist, I thought theyd just found the dead fish before I did, but when fish I _knew_ were perfectly healthy and eating like pigs just hours earlier died mysterouisly during the night, I got suspicious. And the suspicions grew with each new oto-eaten corpse.

Eventually I removed the otos, and the deaths stopped that same day. No single fish has died since.

Now, that doesn't prove they did it, but they must've eaten SOMETHING under those weeks when there were no algae and they didn't accept/have access to any replacement food - they remained fat and plump the whole time.

Searching the net I find a few mentions of otocinclus attacking other fish - but I've not seen any account of them killing other fish. Is this a known problem with otos, and I just don't know about it? Or were the otos innocent, and just victims of circumstance?

[Silurus]

There's a lively discussion about this here.