# Oto Carrying Eggs...



## m3177o (Jan 16, 2009)

hello everyone, 

does anybody have any experience or success breeding oto's? i originally have them in my planted community but recently transfer it to my planted invert. hoping to have a better survival ratio. so far shes still carrying the eggs. 

any information can help, i tried searching for info on the internet but nothing really came up. does anybody appreciate these guys/gals? i know i do. 

thanks in advance.


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## fish dork (Dec 5, 2007)

There is a good page on these around here, but I can't find it at the moment. My ottos frequently look like they're carrying eggs as well, but so far I haven't seen any fry from it. You'll see a few male ottos follow the female around at this stage as well. My understanding is they only lay small amounts of eggs at one time on broad leaf plants. Someone will add a link to the otto page I hope.


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## m3177o (Jan 16, 2009)

thanks for the info fish dork , i will try to look around here for some answer.


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## kimcadmus (Nov 23, 2008)

They are one of my favorite fish. Entertaining behavior and they really scrap things clean. I will look in some books I have when I get home.


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## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

m3177o said:


> hello everyone,
> 
> does anybody have any experience or success breeding oto's? i originally have them in my planted community but recently transfer it to my planted invert. hoping to have a better survival ratio. so far shes still carrying the eggs.
> 
> ...


Mine bred last year in May and they are looking like they may be getting ready to breed again. I suspect they may be seasonal breeders.

When the fish are ready to breed it is easy to distinguish the males from the females by the size. The females are slightly larger and much more rounded.

Breeding starts with a lot of activity especially at night. If you have a moon light you can see them chasing each other after dark. Gradually the activity picks up and they chase each other day and night. There will be two or three males chasing a female. When the female stops on the underside of a leaf, one male will rest next to her. Eventually the male swims to the female's snout in a T formation. The male then wraps around her snout in an embrace, which lasts about 2-3 seconds. When he releases her they swim off. There will be 3-4 eggs laid on the underside of the leaf.
The eggs hatch in about 48 hrs. The fry are free swimming in 1 or 2 days.

The only thing I could get the fry to eat was algae. If given this they grow rather quickly doubling in size in 10 days.

Once they are this size they seem to be immune from attack by predatory fish. I've seen tetras that could easily make a meal of one swim up to the fish then back off once they realize what it is. The fry may be poisonous, have penetrating spines or both. Many catfishes have such defenses.

When breeding, the fish are very prolific and you will find eggs all over the place. I had a plastic beaker in my tank that I used as a fry tank for the baby Oto's. The adults must have spent a lot of time under it at night because I would often find 20 -30 eggs attached to the bottom some mornings.

Even in a well kept tank with plenty of algae, the fish gradually die off. Of the seven I had last year only 3 survived to this year. I replaced them and a few more in February.


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## m3177o (Jan 16, 2009)

ray-the-pilot said:


> Mine bred last year in May and they are looking like they may be getting ready to breed again. I suspect they may be seasonal breeders.
> 
> When the fish are ready to breed it is easy to distinguish the males from the females by the size. The females are slightly larger and much more rounded.
> 
> ...


hey ray, that was very informative. thanks for the tips anf informations. it's amazing to see these otos breed cause i dont think they're that common. im trying to keep a better eye on them. my 10 gallon is pretty densely planted, its hard to see all the activity.

i actually have two question though, does the oto lay only a few eggs at a time, becuase i notice her belly is pretty big and you can kind of see the yellowish eggs inside her belly like they're about to explode. and one more question, do you think its safe to keep my cherry shrimp with the fries? im assuming yes? thank again everybody for the tips


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## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

m3177o said:


> i actually have two question though, does the oto lay only a few eggs at a time, becuase i notice her belly is pretty big and you can kind of see the yellowish eggs inside her belly like they're about to explode. and one more question, do you think its safe to keep my cherry shrimp with the fries? im assuming yes? thank again everybody for the tips


Each time the male embraces the female only 3-4 eggs are laid but they repeat this mating activity over and over. It was impossible for me to keep count of how many eggs were laid by any female. It probably was aver 100.

If you want to save the fry, I'd recommend removing the eggs. There is no doubt that the eggs will be eaten. In my tank there were just so many eggs and good hiding places that a few survived the initial predation to get larger. I also kept a few eggs in a plastic beaker to check out how long the eggs took to hatch and how long before the fry were free swimming.

You might try doing some water changes with R.O water to get them stated but really, once they get going there will be lots of eggs. I was able to find eggs long before I actually saw the fish spawn. And yes they are yellowish.

A really cool thing that I did to positively identify the eggs was to put a leaf with some eggs on it under a microscope. It was easy to identify the wriggling fry inside the egg case.


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