Who has successfully kept otos alive for more then 3 months?

Question

So I started out with 3 one died with in 2 days. The other 2 lived about 2 months so I thought all was well and I got 2 more. Well I noticed one was missing I was down to 3. Then another one was found dead. Then just tonight I found another dead body. I have one left.

The tanks is 36-Gal with a school of 7 read tail rasboras, 2 balloon rams, a candy stripe pleco, an golden algae eater, and a few female bettas. All of those fish are happy and fine none of them have been sick or died. But the otos will not live in my tank. I have some live plants but not much.

At first I had lots of algae for them to eat but they only eat some of it. So I go the Golden now that's a fish that can clean a tank. Are they really that picky. I even tried putting some lettuce in the tank for a day. It just got gross so I too it out.

How the heck do you keep these fish alive do I really have to cook veggies for them? I have read that they can be difficult to keep and YEAH THEY ARE. How do you do it? How long have you kept them for? The longest mine lived was 3 months.

I do regular water changes every month sometimes twice. I check the Ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, and pH every month. They are all at 0 PH is 7.5. Temp is 80F.

They need more live plants don't they?

Answer 1

I've never had one die but i consider myself just lucky compared to all the stories I here.

It comes down to adaptability on there part.

No matter what you do there is never enough natural food for these guys to eat.

I know giving them veggies is a pain, I said forget it to. but if you do a piece of raw zuchini with a spoon jamed threw it to sink is all you need.

They may flock to it like seagulls, if they do sweet just put a piece in twice a week.

I find putting them in pairs not 3's works better.

They adapt better to tanks that the fish are fed complete sinking food tablets to feed bottom dwellers.

They will eat spurlina flakes in the gravel

The odd one like shrimp pellets

And HBH makes a veggie disk wafers (snap a tiny piece and put in)

They never never eat algae disc's

I guess I'm saying they seem to work when you have a tank full of bottom creatures that don't scare these guys and they will come and join the party for these sinking foods.

Remember in the wild these guys travel in schools of thousands and there caught in green water.

Thats the amount of algae there used to dealing with.

good luck bud.

Answer 2

you seem to be doing the right thing

the only problem i can see is the golden algae eater and that's because they can get a bit aggressive and chase fish around a lot so he is probably chasing the ottos (i may be wrong  also I'm guessing your golden algae eater is young as he is cleaning the tank, once he gets bigger the less algae he will eat )

if you get another couple of ottos then try feeding them on algae wafers yes you would need to put in one for every algae eater one for the golden one for the plec and so on so that they don't fight for it,  it seems to work for me

hope this helps

Answer 3

If you are only checking your water chemistry once a month, this is not enough.  But at least you KNOW to check your water parameters.

Otos are very very fragile as has been said before.  I've had them live for years.  I've had them die within days.  Seemingly for no reason.  It's probably not how your keeping your tank, but the otos just being fragile.  You could try getting more live plants, mine Love em!!  And it's recommended to have a very heavily planted tank for them to survive.

Answer 4

I've had my otos last anything from 2 days to my last one that recently died at 2 and a half years old.

These are exceptionally fragile fish. They are all wild caught in asia and shipped around the world in huge numbers - only a small number of those fish survive long enough to make it into a store tank.

Due to them being wild caught it takes a long while to wean them on to anything but algae, with that CAE (golden loach, who only eats algae when under 4", will switch to your other fish when larger) there just may not be enough algae to support otos. FYI in case you weren't aware, that pleco has a tendancy towards meaty foods and won't really touch algae.

Even if you loaded your tank with plants, had plenty of soft algae, it would still be a lottery whether any otos lasted more than a year.