# Otocinclus breeding attempts



## SBS (Feb 26, 2013)

Has anyone managed to breed ottos successfully?

I added a couple of ottos to my small 7g planted tank 3 weeks ago. It only had cherry shrimp and snails for a year since its setup. It's a walstad type of tank.

The tank is in my line of sight next to my computer and today I saw them spawning, the male wrapping himself around the plump female in a "T" position after they "clean" the plant leaves....They've been at it for a good while now.

I have no idea how their eggs look like, hatching period, etc..what to feed the little guys if any hatch. I can't even see the eggs but it's a jungle type planted tank so no way I can look under every leaf.


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

Does by accident count I once rescaped my tank and found 3 small otocinclus. After counting, I had 2 more than I added to the tank, so one probably died, but I'm sure they didn't had a growth retardation. I started reading about them and 100% is wild caught. Very hard to breed (I only found one French article about someone doing it on purpose) and are not endangered at all:





So you probably won't find much info about it. I can only tell you my temperature was high in that time (about 82). KH 4-6 and 50% water changes weekly (sometimes with water that was quite a bit colder, to make my angels spawn). Rest of the info: it was an EI tank with high CO2. Can't remember anything else.


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## SBS (Feb 26, 2013)

Thanks Yo-han.
Well I certainly hope that accidently I'll get some fry too


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## SBS (Feb 26, 2013)

Just a quick glance at the growth of an otto fry:

Starting from when he was a day or two and the pictures are a day or two apart. Now the otto fry is about 2 weeks old


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

That's great! I love these fish, but won't buy wild caught because of the high mortality and appalling conditions during capture and shipping. Did you have just one?


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## SBS (Feb 26, 2013)

What happened was that the parents spawned in one tank from which absolutely no fry came out, or at least I saw none. I have no idea what happened to the eggs or fry.
In the mean time I trimmed the adult otto tank and moved a few cuttings to another tank which I was in the process of disassembling to put soil as substrate. I left them floating on the surface. So a day or so later I ripped out all planted plants from that tank making a huge mess in the process and brown murky water. I caught a massive amount of shrimp too. Then I turned the filters off and when just about to take all the old sand out I had to go out for a while so I left it. I came back and when looking for last remaining shrimp I saw this little thing stuck on the glass (first pic) 
I quickly turned the filters back on, did a water change and here he is two weeks later. My plants in a bucket as I can't take the tank down neither there's a point planting them back. So yes, just one baby 
I did put a couple of plants just so he has somewhere to land from time to time and a few oak leaves and I've been feeding him blanched zucchini from about day 2 or 3 since I saw him to which he responded immediately. I think when I first saw him he was only 1 or 2 days old as he had the yolk sac on him.

So far he's been doing well but who knows if he'll survive to adulthood. I surely hope so.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Please try again. I don't know if you are anywhere near me, but I would love some captive-bred ottos!


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## SBS (Feb 26, 2013)

I didn't do much to be honest bar putting them in the tank  so it remains to be seen if I'll have another spawn.

I am unfortunately far away from you I'd presume as I live in Ireland. Otherwise you would have been very welcomed to home raised ottos.

The ones they sell here are always wild caught as well and are mostly in very bad condition, looking like tad poles with skinny tales and big heads and nursing them back to health isn't always possible.
It's really sad that so many of them end up dead.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Yes, Ireland would be a little far! I love the fact that we have an international membership.


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## SBS (Feb 26, 2013)

It's a great forum so not surprising


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## krissy (Jun 3, 2014)

I heard ottos are hard to breed. I would love to see some home bred ottos!


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## SBS (Feb 26, 2013)

I wonder if people find them hard to breed because they had different species without realizing. My older 4 ottos are 3 different species, the ones that are the same are both females. I only figured it two years after I had them  Three of them were bought at the same time from the same tank in the local fish shop so there can be mixed shipments.

I think in a species only tank, well planted and established they'll probably breed early or later judging by my own success.

The problem is raising the fry to adulthood. I read survival rates aren't great because of being hard to feed them.
If I hadn't taken apart my tank and hadn't pulled the plants out I would have had no algae for my little fry otto. I got a diatom outbreak after I did that which suited me right to the ground.

I now managed to cause a diatom outbreak in another established tank by increasing the bioload and feeding twice as much so if these methods work consistently one would be able to grow some suitable algae for fry too if they don't mind getting their tank a bit messy . Obviously upping the water changes at the same time would be ideal too.

The little fry is now paying a lot more attention to the glass and the algae rather than the zucchini. The first week or two he spent most of his time on the zucchini, stuck to it. This may be suitable info for somebody trying to raise otto fry as I think people lose them in the first weeks rather than later and it seems the fry preferred the vegetable matter at the start. It went for the zucchini the first time I put it in, almost within minutes I put it, which was a day after it lost it's egg yolk sack. So not that hard feeding them at the start.
But the juice from constant blanched zucchini in the tank can really mess with the filters. Mine got clogged with slimy juice from it and that was very unusual as they never slowed down before like that. So worth keeping an eye as water quality can go down fast.


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## SBS (Feb 26, 2013)

21 days









22 days


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