# Snails or Otocinclus



## Welearn (13 Jun 2021)

Question,
I have brown diatoms on some of my Hydrocotyle tripartita plants,I would like know which invert is the best to clean the leaves.
Snails or Otocinclus? 
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Simon.


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## Karmicnull (14 Jun 2021)

Red cherry shrimp will power through it!  Otos won't touch it.  Snails may help, but time works really well too. It's a phase new tanks go through as they mature.
Cheers,
Simon


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## zozo (14 Jun 2021)

Well, Oto's are pretty expensive and it's always a question of how long they will last. If they make it past a year you are very lucky. Snails are cheaper and can reproduce, same as shrimps as said above.

But whatever livestock you choose they are never the solution to alga problems, if the conditions favor it grows faster than it can be eaten. Diatoms are something you patiently have to wait out, it can take weeks to months but eventually, they disappear on their own not to be seen again, at least not in numbers. To speed up this process some say reducing the light will help... 

One of my tanks was littered with brown filamentous diatoms for over 6 months... I never changed a thing, all I did was wait and it went away and never came back in the 6 years this tank is running now.  Somehow it will deplete its own food source, logically let it do its thing then this will only be sooner. Fighting and eradicating the algae will not remove the food source. This might be waiting it out looking at a lot with minimal effort or put energy in the fight for longer looking at less.


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## PARAGUAY (14 Jun 2021)

Theres a lot to be said for adding snails ,algae eating fish, and shrimp as first before your featured fish . They will graze and help keep algae down before it can be a problem. Although its true not all eradicate algae they help by eating biofilm . Just IME


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## hypnogogia (14 Jun 2021)

zozo said:


> If they make it past a year you are very lucky.


Wow.  I feel privileged and lucky to have some Otos that are approaching 4 years.


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## PARAGUAY (14 Jun 2021)

Not  expierinced  with Ottos that much but mine do a brilliant job but l am aware that running out food they sort of "give up the ghost" and pass away. I am adding parboiled spinach leaves every couple of days and within 20 minutes they are on it. 4 years thats encourging @ hypnogogia


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## hypnogogia (14 Jun 2021)

Interestingly, they also survived the lethal dose of food that my daughter put in the tank one day.  about 90% of my stock perished. but the Otos hung in there.


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## zozo (14 Jun 2021)

hypnogogia said:


> Wow.  I feel privileged and lucky to have some Otos that are approaching 4 years.



That's indeed extreme old age, good job! They actually are rather notorious for dropping like flies for no obvious reason. I stopped buying them for that at €2.95 per individual had about 30 over the years and all gone within the year.


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## Sean Scapes (27 Jun 2021)

I would get them all if you can afford too. I have otos, nerite snails, amano shrimp and cherry shrimp. Cherry shrimp will breed in tank if happy so you can grow the population.

Otos are very sensitive if you buy them drip acclimation is a must I did it for 4 hours to be safe. My local pet shop sells 6 for 10 pounds so not overly expensive. Brown diatoms are caused by silicates in the water and some hardscape rocks leech this plus no limit to how much can be in tap water.

From studying my clean up crew otos are most effective for diatoms took less then 24 hours to clean all the brown algae off my plants. Snails are good but move slowly but amazing at removing more stubborn algae green spot for example. Shrimps are amazing all rounders but stubborn algae they struggle with my shrimps clean gravel and an trapped waste between plants.

If you buy otos make sure they have plump bellies as they are caught wild and starved till they arrive at your LFS, full bellies increase chance of survival as they have bacteria in their digestive system, when they are starved the bacteria numbers reduce and their ability to digest foods also drops hence the high fatality rate.

Not sure how true it is but I read they use cyanide to help catch them in the wild, adding to the reason they are prone to dying. This is all based off my research before purchasing them myself.


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## louis_last (2 Jul 2021)

hypnogogia said:


> Interestingly, they also survived the lethal dose of food that my daughter put in the tank one day.  about 90% of my stock perished. but the Otos hung in there.


This actually is really interesting. I guess it was probably because the otos could breathe air from the surface while the other fish couldn't?


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## erwin123 (2 Jul 2021)

Sean Scapes said:


> Otos are very sensitive if you buy them drip acclimation is a must I did it for 4 hours to be safe. My local pet shop sells 6 for 10 pounds so not overly expensive. Brown diatoms are caused by silicates in the water and some hardscape rocks leech this plus no limit to how much can be in tap water.



Wow that a pretty steep price. 

Otos are less than a pound each in my country, slightly more than Amano shrimp which are 70p-80p. So I admit i've never drip acclimated my otos (I just add tank water to the bag the oto came in. wait 5 minutes, and add them to the tank).  They easily live for more than a year?

I suspect that my Densoni Barbs eat the smaller cherry shrimp and babies in my tank. I thought the plant mass would provide sufficient protection, but the barbs are tenacious - they will even chase after Amanos who steal their wafers


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## arcturus (2 Jul 2021)

louis_last said:


> This actually is really interesting. I guess it was probably because the otos could breathe air from the surface while the other fish couldn't?


A food overdose will trigger the release of toxic ammonia and nitrite as it decomposes. So, the main issue is not the (lack of) air or oxygen but toxicity. When otos breathe from the surface using their mouth they do not use the gills underwater while the oxygen is absorbed. This could indeed reduce their exposure to the toxic elements. However, they would have to do this until the water is changed or the elements are transformed... so this does not sound to be the most straightforward explanation - it is more likely that the remaining livestock was simply more sensitive to the concentration of NH3/4 or NO2 than the otos...


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## louis_last (2 Jul 2021)

arcturus said:


> A food overdose will trigger the release of toxic ammonia and nitrite as it decomposes. So, the main issue is not the (lack of) air or oxygen but toxicity. When otos breathe from the surface using their mouth they do not use the gills underwater while the oxygen is absorbed. This could indeed reduce their exposure to the toxic elements. However, they would have to do this until the water is changed or the elements are transformed... so this does not sound to be the most straightforward explanation - it is more likely that the remaining livestock was simply more sensitive to the concentration of NH3/4 or NO2 than the otos...


Would be interesting to know more. I've always read that otos are relatively sensitive to water quality that's why I find it so interesting that they'd be the sole survivors of this kind of accident. I still think it's as likely that the bacteria decomposing the excess food also caused the dissovled oxygen to drop and their ability to breath from the surface could have saved them.


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## Wookii (2 Jul 2021)

erwin123 said:


> Wow that a pretty steep price.
> 
> Otos are less than a pound each in my country, slightly more than Amano shrimp which are 70p-80p. So I admit i've never drip acclimated my otos (I just add tank water to the bag the oto came in. wait 5 minutes, and add them to the tank).  They easily live for more than a year?



I’m not sure the cost of a fish should determine the level of care it receives?

You are likely lucky that the shop where you purchased the fish had very similar water parameters to your own, and as a result the fish didn’t suffer osmotic shock and die.

I personally think all fish deserve at least several hours of drip acclimation to minimise the stress we put them under when buying them and adding them to our tanks.


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## erwin123 (3 Jul 2021)

Wookii said:


> I’m not sure the cost of a fish should determine the level of care it receives?
> 
> You are likely lucky that the shop where you purchased the fish had very similar water parameters to your own, and as a result the fish didn’t suffer osmotic shock and die.
> 
> I personally think all fish deserve at least several hours of drip acclimation to minimise the stress we put them under when buying them and adding them to our tanks.


u are absolutely right , but people like me that started out mostly got our advice from our local shop and the common advice is just mix some fish tank water with the bag, wait awhile and then add the fish so that is a practice I've sort of gotten into...  but the more I learn in this forum which I just joined, I'm slowly changing  - like Ferts don't cause algae - I'm still wrapping my head around that


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## Libba (3 Jul 2021)

It's annoying how much conflicting information there is about diatoms. My take on it: time and light. If your light is sufficient it will go away eventually on its own as other microorganisms outcompete it. My current tank was started with medium-high light and never experienced diatoms. None in the tank at all. The only place in my system they have shown up is in the hoses and in my filter where there is no light.
The tank right next to it has the same driftwood and the same source water but it's a low light tank. It was full of diatoms within a couple of weeks running.


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## Driftless (3 Jul 2021)

Is this is a new tank?  How heavily planted is the tank, adding more plants will help?  With bright enough light and CO2, the diatoms should go away.  Your substrate may be a contributor as well.

I have Otos in two of my tanks, one is a shrimp tank with snails and the Otos being the only fish in the tank.  I don't have a problem with their being short-lived.


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## louis_last (4 Jul 2021)

erwin123 said:


> u are absolutely right , but people like me that started out mostly got our advice from our local shop and the common advice is just mix some fish tank water with the bag, wait awhile and then add the fish so that is a practice I've sort of gotten into...  but the more I learn in this forum which I just joined, I'm slowly changing  - like Ferts don't cause algae - I'm still wrapping my head around that


You have access to some amazing shops over there in singapore, please drown us in photos if you're ever visiting any of them. I absolutely love the mini fissidens that seem a lot more common over there.


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## Gavin3171 (11 Sep 2021)

Otos didnt last long for me. Nerite snails power through algae, but as ive recently found out also lay eggs.
RCS would definitely be on overtime sorting it out


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