The Oto Journal

First topic message reminder :

Some of you might know..but for those that don't....here's my little project:

Here's a shot from today:


So far I was able to count (41) eggs however (6) were already non-viable.

Spotted some more wiggle waggles in the holding tank today. Awesome. Doing quite nicely considering I didn't know they were there. :)

Getting ready to start on the main tank. Gonna be a big task involving trimming, minor vac and catching of juvies. Yay Me!

Work continues on the main tank. I have captured 10 more juvies. Looks like I may have about 10 more to go. All the crypts are out now. Small vac is next and then I'll start replanting.

More eggs found in the holding tank today. It's really crowded in there as I have been pulling plants from the main tank and just laying them in there. Obvisouly hasn't detered the activity. ;)

Almost done with the main tank. Have a small issue with the crypts though. I have no medium sized ones to put in there. They are all large or small. Has made the tank pretty bright. I think I can work around that.

This tank continues to amaze me between the Oto's, plants, (2) clutches of Briggs eggs and now the shrimp. I have blue tigers appearing and just yesterday found one with orange eyes.

Prepping zucchini to feed and need to recharge CO2.

Mom and Pop Oto hanging tight today. Activity picking up in the tank. Did a small water change in it today. The Tigers and Briggs are cruising all over the place.

Over in the holding tank, found a couple of wigglers. Big water change in there.

Fresh zucchini prepped and fed tonight.

Latest spawn was a dud. Every egg was bad! Dang! :( Gonna go do some water tests to see if anything stands out. After which, I'll clean up the eggs, do a small water change and start over.

Will be recharging the CO2 today and prep up a fresh batch of zucchini.

Bad incident this morning. Lost power sometime early this morning. Was out for a few hours. Around 0600ish, everything came back on. I checked things and at first glance, everything seemed ok. I did have to restart two filters. Would know more when I get back home after work.

Only one tank turned out to have issues. I lost two little ones in the holding tank. Doing a 25% water change in there now.

Also scrapped off all the bad eggs. Must have been well over 50. Bad sight to see.

All other tanks were just fine. The only other casulties were in my salt tanks.

Still not much happening in the breeding world. Hopefully they are just taking a break after the last failed attempt. The females are huge like they are getting ready to explode!

Taking this opportunity to do some major trimming. Working with the holding tank first. Wow. The Sags and Crypts have done very, very well in here. I know I keep saying it, but definately need to work on that Java Fern. It's half the tank!

I want to rescape it and replace the cypress knee with something else and of course this would eliminate the JF for the most part. I'm still thinking though.

I'll follow this up with thinning the crypts in the Cocama tank and then hit the main tank.

Still dormant in the breeding. 20% water changes in all tanks this weekend. Some plant trimming. CO2 needs recharged so will work on that the next couple of days. Water tests pending.

Funny thing....I found a boat load of Tiger shrimp in the filter of the Vittatus tank. Was completely shocked at how many were in there. I will have to put on a better prefilter I recon. There are no gaps between the filter and the intake which is leading me to believe they are some how working their way through the sponge as babes and then getting sucked up. I have to do some major population control on them now.

Some good news on the Cocama front. I am soon to receive a nice donation of a couple of beautiful ladies in the next week or so (weather permitting). This portion of the project will finally get under way. The guys have been by themselves too long. I was getting ready to place another order for more when this opportunity developed.

Great News! Morning check of the tanks and I found (5) wigglers in one of the tanks. Awesome! Funny thing, I never saw any eggs so this placement was in secrecy. :) I didn't stay down there too long as there was a lot of activity going on. Females are scanning the terrain with males at a close distance. Might have a bigger spawn getting ready to occur.

This was ahead of a planned 20% water change today. I will hold off on the WC in the tank with the fry and just do a water test and see what kind of parms we have. The fry are in one of the tanks that had a higher than normal nitrAte level.

Fresh zucchini to be prepped.

No sign of the wigglers today. Would be very hard to spot just (5) anyway if they aren't on the glass. Will continue to monitor. Activity level still up so will keep a watchful eye on things.

Got back from the docs office with my daughter. All is well with her hand. They confirmed an incomplete non-conforming fracture. Whatever that means. Nothing serious and should heal up nicely.

Went downstairs to dose the tanks with ferts. Made it to the bottom step when I noticed the "hornets nest of activitiy" going on in one of the tanks. Tell tell signs of a spawn. I did notice (2) females and it looked about (4) males working over the Bacopa section.

I'll go back down in a bit a check on things.

Confirmed the spawn in one tank. Was able to locate a few eggs in the Bacopa as suspected. The ladies are working deep in the Crypts and Java Fern at the moment. Now the the Amano's are at test. We'll see how they do with eggs in the tank. Granted I can only see a few eggs at this time, but at least I know where to look at the moment. If they go missing, the Amano's get moved; plain and simple. Did manage to dose the tanks while I was down there. Limiting my activity around there since the spawn is still going on. Probably won't be returning until later this evening.

So far so good with the Amano's. All of the eggs that I can see are still accounted for. They (Amanos) are pretty close to where the eggs are but so far have left them alone.

15% water change ahead of tomorrows anticipated hatching. Prepping fresh zucchini.

Very cool pics threwout this thread! i will have to google on what the adults look like..... Congrats on all the spawnings

Here's a shot of the original breeding pair:

As expected, the eggs are hatching. I didn't make it home before the lights went out but using the lighting in the room, I was able to find (3) wigglers. Still no idea as to how many may be in there or how many to kind of sorta look for. We'll give er a go tomorrow and see what may be.

No sign of any wigglers today. :(

Will continue to monitor the tank over the weekend. Otherwise, just routine maintenance.

I did unfortunately find a dead Tiger shrimp in the tank; female with eggs. Been a while since I tried to artificially hatch any eggs so I'm gonna give it another go. I striped the eggs and placed them in a tea ball. This was then placed directly over the air bubbles from the stone in the same tank. At last check, the eggs were getting good movement in there.

Been a rather busy day. Did manage to spend about 10 minutes in the fish room. I did spot a wiggler today. Awesome. Hopefully there are more but at least I managed to find one.

Tried to snap some pics yesterday but they didn't turn out well. The fry I have seen are hanging out on the top side of crypt leaves near the water surface. Makes it hard to get the shot.

Water changes on tap for today.

Think I have formalized my rack plans (for the moment). Here are my planed tank assignments:

O. Cocama w/ Caridina propinqua (Special thanks to Todd who is donating a couple of female Cocama's. My original shipment was all males)
O. Macrospilus w/ Caridina serratirostris (Ninjas still not available as yet)
O. Vitatus w/ Caridina gracilirostris (Special thanks to Rachael who has made a contribution of Red Nose for the breeding efforts - and Amano's too)

Still have tanks waiting for O. Flexilis and O. Mimulus if I can locate them.

Lots of big plans on schedule for the warmer days. Ton of work to get things better organized. Looking forward to the expansion and continued efforts.

The Good, The Bad ... and the Ugly. That is how I will say this update will be.

We'll start with the Ugly. Came home and found (13) dead Tiger shrimp. All adults. Very odd. Thankfully all Otos are accounted for. No clue as to why the dead were only adults. No babes or juvies appeared to have been impacted. I have absolutely no clue as to what would cause this. I will do a water test in a bit.

On to the Bad, which is actually tied in with the Good. My shrimp shipment arrived today. Red Nose and Bamboo. The bad news was that one of the bags the bamboo shrimp were in leaked out. Oh No! Shrimpy was and still is alive. All shrimp are acclimating nice and slowly.

To the Good...outside of the shrimp arriving today, I also found more wigglers. Yay! Makes me feel a little better.

I'm still bummed about the Tigers. Maybe the test results will tell me something.

Went down to check on things and found yet another dead Tiger. Decided that I needed to do an emergency 25% water change. I also dosed the entire tank with Primes.

Some things to note but doubt they are a factor:

- Temp dropped down to near 70. It's fluctuating around 10 degrees from night to day. Suspecting a bad heater as it should remain around 78. Swapped out for a different heater and will see if I hit target temp prior to retiring for the night.
- pH came in at 7.2. Not concerned at all with that as it is only a .2 swing from norm.
- All other parms are normal and in the target range to include nitrAtes which is back to 20.

I'm also wondering if maybe I should run some carbon in the filter. Hmmm...will have to see the results from this water change and go from there.

I think my photo taking skills have dimenished greatly. I can not get any good shots of the fry guys. They are growing up nicely. Great coloring. They will meet their first water change this weekend.

At the main Vittatus tank, things still not looking so good for the Tigers. Losses continue to mount up. While not giving up, I have all but resigned to losing the colony. In a last ditch effort, I have removed about (50) babes and will relocate them. I have them in two seperate specimen containers which are inside another tank to keep heat on them until I'm ready to put them in their temporary home.

After which, I have broken down this tank but not completely. I have uprooted all the plants except the crypts. Even the great wall of Subwassertang has come down. To be safe, I had a large bowl of water standing by to keep the wall in while I did the work. I knew there was going to be shrimp hiding in there and was correct. Once I placed the wall in the water, I began to see several shrimp swimming about. As mean as it sounds, I unfortunately was willing to sacrifice these few for the good of the colony. The water was aged and I'm sure the pH was off by a good 1/2 point.

After this, I did a major gravel vac of the entire area; about 1/2 the tank. Now granted the water parms didn't support a major task as this but I felt I had nothing to lose. Pulled out all kinds of goodies. The two jugs are just completely dark. Took about 30 minutes for this and made sure to hit it as good as I could. When done, I started adding fresh spring water back to the tank via drip method. No filter is running at the moment due to the water level but have an air stone currently running. I dumped the bowl with the Subwassertang back into the tank. Hopefully those shrimpies will be ok.

Taking a break while the tank is slowly refilling, I have been watching the Oto's just going all over the place. Their activity is so high at the moment. It's as if this is what they have been waiting for. Papa Oto is so confused. He starts following one female around when another passes by which causes him to shift gears. :) They are just everywhere at the moment. Several shrimp are getting blind sided by them as they swim through the crypts.

Once the water level has topped off, I will reassemble the Subwassertang wall and get it back in place. I'll eventually be removing all the Tigers in favor of the Red Nose only to keep the numbers in check. This should allow the Otos open range of the tank with minimal activity.

Will recharge the CO2 after all is said and done as well.

Best shot I can manage to fire off at the moment. These little guys are just under 2 weeks. The made the water change just fine ... so far. It's only been a day.



They are grazing the leaves well going after the powdered food.

Started putting the main tank back together again. Not real happy with the way the Subwassertang wall turned out but I think it will be ok once it gets bushy again. I think I made it too compact. It just looks different. I think I have it lower than it was last time. I may build up that corner a bit but we'll see. Probably will wind up redoing it using a thinner portion of Sub.

Activity remains high so I have to get all the stems replanted and soon.

On a plus note, there have been no further Tiger casulties of late. I'm working on the new Tiger tank so they will probably make the move in the coming weeks. Once they have been relocated, the Red Nose will move in permanently. Being a low order breeder, this will keep the shrimp population/activity down for the Otos while at the same time maintaining the tank.

CO2 to be recharged today. I pulled it during the past week due to all the craziness going on in the tank.

Fry are still doing well and continuing to grow. No idea as to how many may be around as the Java Fern is one heck of house. ;) I see a couple that will hang out from time to time on the other side of the tank.

On a plus note, the female Cocama's are on their way! They should be here by Friday.

Hoping to get things started on the rack and finalize the tanks so there won't be any more disturbances.

Things are looking good in all tanks. Have found no further casulties, fry guys still hangin with me annnnnnnnnd ..... THEY'RE HERE! The lady O. Cocama's have arrived today. They are in the process of being slowly acclimated to the tank. This will take several hours. I placed a freshly blanched slice of zucchini in there for them while they wait.

I bought a new heater for the main Vittatus tank. My plan is to slowly replace the old heaters whether they need it or not. I don't want to have another issue like I just went through. I have the initial temp set to 76 at the moment to see where we stand but that should just about right.