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Nano Walstad tank startup

Took a picture of the little otto just now. The thing is over 3 months old and is still tiny....

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And one more picture of the little tank before I chop it down.

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Thanks Troi. Yes, it looks very healthy and is doing very well but it seems to grow super slow, it's no where near the size of the smallest ones you could see in a shop. I just didn't expect ottos grow so slowly but when I think of it my older ones took a year or two to grow as large as they are now, the females are quite large.
 
Well, I think I never posted my tank after a trim. It looks ugly enough lol. This time I chopped lots of anubias as well that was trying to climb the right side of the glass and was having space problems and was also grown in between the glass and the filter out the back. I hate moss, bits flew everywhere, I removed almost all of it, poor shrimp are not happy.

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The little otto is as little as ever, but is a very acrobatic one, flying like a rocket around the tank but I can't see much growth out of him since the last picture. I moved in with him one of the adult ottos a few weeks back because the tank glass is covered with green algae which followed the original diatoms, and the adult otto seemed like he needed a bit of extra in his diet, plus I was curious to see if the baby otto would get excited with a bit of company. And he did, plus the adult one got very fat too :) I felt sorry for the remaining one in the 5f tank as he was all alone and that tank is ridiculously free of algae so today I took the plunge and moved him in with the other too.
So now it's kid, his dad and his stepmom all in one tank and right now three of them are gone crazy chasing each other around the tank. It's very amusing watching them. Maybe they'll spawn :)They are the only fish middle/top tank and have it all to themselves and seem quite happy in there undisturbed.
The tank is about 120-130 litres so its still better than the 7g tank they all came out from.
 
Please excuse the poor picture but its because of the green algae covering the glass.
It's the two adult ottos on the left, their bellies looking green because of the algae covered glass, and the kid otto is on the very right of the picture so some size comparison can be made. The small one is about 4.5 months I think.

Ottos_zpsaf8bf304.jpg
 
Honestly guys, I have never seen such happy ottos since they are all back together. I think they are the happiest in this current tank they are in. They are adorable to watch and are inseparable. They chase each other a lot and what I've noticed is that the most they love are the scattered stones on the bottom and the fine sand. They also seem to love to launch themselves in the middle of a shrimp fiest :)
Normally ottos are very much around the sides of tanks, middle way, or on top of plants but this tank is not really planted, just a few anubias, and the bottom is free from clutter. And they just hop around like rabbits from stone to stone. And it's not that they eat the algae from the stones while doing that, but they use the stones like trampolines to launch themselves to the next one :) Totally adorable. I must try to take a video. The tank has a very strong flow to about 18x and I am wondering if the "river" type environment is what they like.
 
They will definitely appreciate the flow! Ottos are amazing fish, you can never get enough of them, if only people understand that they need to be in groups instead of buying one or two for algae purposes.
 
Yes, it could be the flow that they like so much. This is their third tank and I think I've seen a vast improvement in behaviour despite this being the least planted. One of the filters also spreads micro bubbles via the venturi. I've seen videos in nature where the live in swamps and oxygen deprived conditions but I guess that doesn't mean they don't appreciate a better environment :)

And they are very, very social with each other. I would get more ottos, only if growing algae wasn't such a hard task sometimes :eek:
 
I don't know if trick this has been mentioned before, but what I did when I was keeping whiptail catfish was placing pebbles in some water by the windowsill to let the algae take over. I will place some pebbles in and once the algae was cleared I then switched stones, this had allowed a constant supply of algae for them. My whiptails rarely moved until the night, most likely due to their instinct in acting like a twig so it was hard to feed them even if a algae tab was in front of them. An added bonus of this method was the natural look and it doesn't not impact on water quality.
 
Thanks Michael. Yes, I've tried that myself. Here, where I live in non sunny Ireland it's hard or almost impossible growing algae on the window. That small tank for which the thread is opened has always been next to the window getting natural light as well as artificial and right now it's totally free of algae, especially now into the winter time as there's no sunshine. So I am a bit stuck. I actually have a couple of planted containers on the window sill and they are clear. In the summer I may be able to when the sunshine is back.

If I had a strong small LED I could actually grow some separately in a container with some ferts but I don't have currently any extra light I can use.
 
Hey everyone, thanks again for all your comments and support.

It's been a while. I just wanted to say that the little otto is still smaller than the adults but has grown quite a bit because I confused him with the adults for just a moment. I must take a picture. I lost track of how old he is but I remember the month of May this year for some reason so since then...., whatever the date. It's really a learning experience because when I bred corys for example they were quite large at maybe 4 months the most, and not to mention live bearers and the likes.
With ottos it seems it takes way longer to get to the size you buy them in a shop because mine is half way through only, about...... Maybe I am doing something wrong, I don't know... but he looks healthy and the belly is full.

And I love them. The three ottos in this particular tank are having the laugh of their lives because they are in a tank with just very peaceful kuhli loaches and cherry shrimp only. They are so, so active and so entertaining. They land in the middle of a cherry shrimp feast quite often just to check what's going on. And my other four ottos in a community tank are so skittish in comparison, they are actually the bullied ones.

I will one day have just ottos and peacefull bottom dwellers in a larger tank. I know ottos and corys together are common in nature and I love both species.

On a side note, the little tank is doing good. I trimmed quite a lot of it again, that's all it ever needed normally, but it has developed a white film on top and I wonder if it has to do with the less light exposure as it's next to a window and there's almost no sunshine during winter. I am pretty certain the same happened last winter. I am just leaving it run. The shrimp are doing great so I am not worried.
 
Hey all.

I have been lazy. I tried to take a picture once of my "baby" otto alongside the adult ones but by the time I got the camera he had moved and there's no point for a single one because it's deceiving.
Believe it or not, he must be about 8 months old and is way smaller than the adults though he looks healthy and has a thick tail and rounded belly.

My small tank for which this thread is opened is ridiculously overgrown, not even good for a bad picture but has been totally algae free so besides very tangled plants, it's looking good in person.
 
What I do is to ask at the LFS how much time they are there... (At least two shops in my city label the tanks with the arrival date). And I only buy the ones that have been there at least 10 days. There is a thread somewhere here explaining that bacteria on their stomach can be severely damaged after some weeks traveling from their origin. Thus buying a fish that has been at the LFS some days means that this fish has not suffered or is recovered... Before doing this I lost 2 of 5 fish, in just 24 hours with a very similar behaviour you describe. Once I did this, I could replace the 2 dead ones and an additional one without any loss.

Jordi
Sorry just started reading this journal as I'm definitely due another DW tank, but I'm aware this post was from years ago. Even so I thought I'd relay some excellent advice I was given on otocinclus, which is:

They were eating in the wild before capture, so there's a strong argument to get your hands on them the second they arrive in the store. Don't wait to see if they survive the LFS's care unless you're very confident the LFS is going to take exceptional care of them. This would include always putting new otocinclus deliveries into different tanks that have really decent algae growth, where so many LFS's have an appointed otocinclus tank that's permanently stripped bare of any algae, so they starve as they need a constant food source to graze on! Its actually a really good question to ask to assess a store's basic fish-keeping skills as to whether they rotate the otocinclus tanks?

Second is de-worming - few stores are willing to spend money on appropriate deworming for wild caught fish as its just cheaper to see which ones pull through than spend money on meds. Either way, its really worth using something like API's general cure for internal parasites the moment you get them home. This is just going to maximise the percentage of the food they take onboard that can go directly into their growth rather than growing more worms or parasites.
Third is whether or not the store is making some effort to wean them onto an appropriate prepared food, whether thats being able to see them munch on veggies or repashy or spirulina tablets - doesn't matter which that much, but the store making the effort is!
Lastly, if you have space, and they don't take up very much, buy at least ten otocinclus - they are very prone to stress related problems simply from being suddenly deprived of enough tankmates to shoal with, living with hundreds if not thousands of their kind in the wild. This stress combined with internal parasites will see them off, when in the wild they could cope with the parasite burden no problem.

Bottom line is that few LFS's know how to take really good care of otocinclus, or someone in head office has determined that its not cost effective to do so, so get them into YOUR care as soon as possible after they arrive. Of course if your LFS is good then giving them time to recover and to be fattened up make loads of sense.

cheers
 
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