# What do your Oto's eat?



## CeeJay (2 Aug 2009)

Hi all.
I am getting a bit concerned about one of my Oto's, his back end appears alarmingly thin. I only spotted this today when he was hanging on the front glass. He normally only hangs on a side pane where I can't get a view.
His behaviour seems normal, he's mooching about the leaves of the plants, on the wood and on the glass, busying himself all day.
The only thing I've offered that he will pay any attention to is cucumber, and then only briefly, whereas the others go nuts for it.
So far I've tried Crab cuisine, Algae wafers, Cucumber and Courgettes and apart from the Cucumber, he doesn't touch anything else.
He's certainly the thinnest of the bunch and I'm just concerned he's not starving to death  
He has been in the tank for about 3 months now.
Any suggestions?

Chris.


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## Ed Seeley (2 Aug 2009)

I give mine some marine Nori sheets.  You can get them fresh from a specialist food supermarket that sells Japanese food, or you can find dried sheets in the marine section of any good LFS.  I clip the sheets into a feed clip and the algae eaters (and a lot of other fish too) love to peck at them.  They're the only thing my Otos have ever really liked apart from 'real' algae.


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## hellohefalump (2 Aug 2009)

I don't feed my otos anything, they seem to find what they need around the tank.  It is a big (100gals) established, very well planted tank though.  

If the others are alright, and the oto is behaving normally, then maybe your oto is a male and that's why he's thin?  I find my females a lot fatter than the males?  You can tell because you can see eggs (yellow ones) in the female's tummy.


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## CeeJay (2 Aug 2009)

Hi all.

Thanks for the replies. My tank is well planted too, so maybe 'he' is finding enough to eat around the tank. Certainly appears to be behaving like all the others, apart from eating that is. Maybe I'm worrying unnecessarily.   

Chris


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## baron von bubba (3 Aug 2009)

my ottos receive no special food, they seem to find a good amount of food in the tank, they all have rounded bellies and seem happy.


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## Sarutobi (11 Aug 2009)

All of my oto's when i introduced them into my tank and let them get used to it.  Then about 4-5 hrs later when it was feeding time, they swam straight up to the surface to get the flakes that all of my other fishes were eating.  They were really nice and healthy and were fairly large too.  They did a good job with eating up a lot of algae, but then when my tank was loosing a lot of oxygen from an unknown cause I have no idea of.  About 90% of the fishes in my tank died.  Pictus Catfish, Black skirt and Albino Skirted Tetras, and danios.  Although my angel and pleco and goruamis survived


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## mjw1476 (22 Aug 2009)

i read an article that they feed on small microscopic bacteria in and on the plants, mainly moss and algae, try putting  little bit of liquifry into your moss or 'furry' like plant, thats what triggered of what i think is inforusia and they seem to cluster around the clump of algae on the wood i had and the moss balls, dont know if that was what they were eating but might be worth a try.


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## CeeJay (22 Aug 2009)

Hi mjw1476

Thanks for the reply. As you may have noticed from the date of the opening post, it's been some 3 weeks since I asked the original question, and I am pleased to report all Oto's are present and correct and all appear healthy, so they must be finding enough titbits around the tank   .

Chris


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