Ostosynclisorsomatlikethat

[this_is_tipp-ex]

Just been to a not so local LFS and saw some fish about an inch in length, sucking there way along the front of the glass in a display tank, they looked quite different from any other alge eating type fish i am familiar with so i asked an assistant what they were...

ottosynklis (spelt phoneticly as i rember him saying) can anyone idetify them properly and give me the corectly spelt name so i can look them up, any details or experiances with them would be great too as i quite liked the look of them but would like to know more. I asked if they grew much bigger and the assistant said thay didnt really get much bigger, they were in a 200ish litre tank i guess with some small discus, a big shoal of rummy nosed tetras and the odd shrim thing.

 

[goldencomet]

are these them?
http/www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_otom.php

 

[SamUK]

otocinclus

 

[this_is_tipp-ex]

thats the little blighters... excellent thanks guys, any experiances/advice on them anyone?

 

[Daz CPFC]

Fantastic fish. Have them in two of my tanks. Make sure you get 3+ of them as they get shy if they are lonley.

Can be hard to aclimatise to your tank so you need to keep a check on them over the first few weeks to make sure they are ok. Apart from that keep the algae under control and are great fun

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Oto's aren't the hardiest of fish, they can be difficult to successfully acclimatise to tanks in the long term as many that come from lfs's are underfed and weak. So you need to concentrate on fattening them up as much as possible and giving them the best water quality and stress-free tank habitat you can if you want to help increase the chances of them living past the first month or so as much as posible . But once they are fully settled in and are of a good body weight, then they can be surpisingly tough little fish.
They love a fresh source of algae in the tank, but if you have no algae then most will happily live off algae wafers/tablets. Their diet is very veg orientated, but they do need a little protein every now and then (many catfish pelet brands like JMC or King British are quite high in protein and are ideal for oto's). Planting in the tank is important, these fish enjoy the cover that plants offer and will spend a lot of their time cleaning the plants, live plants are best but fake ones are also fine if you don't want live planting.
They are very peaceful and sociable fish, a minimum size group of 3 or more is good, but avoid mixing them with agressive or territorial tank mates which may chase or attack them, as oto's don't really have any real defense against most fish and aren't the fastest of fish either, so you should try to mix them only with peaceful fish or fish that you know for sure won't harrass the oto's.

 

[Torrean]

Not 100% on how true this is but it makes sense to me.

I was talking to an LFS employee (he knows his stuff generally) and he recommended a shoal of 6 or more. He recommended this after a bit of discussion about how ottos are usually skinny and die shortly after being put in a tank. I had said that the reason they die is because the bacteria that helps with digestion dies off during transport. He said yeah that's why you get as many as you can. Once they start eating and pooping again the ones that still have the live bacteria in there stomach poop some of them out. Then the ottos that are lacking the bacteria pick it up from the poo as they graze. This allows all of them to eat properly and increases survivability.

 

[aquila]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but how would Oto's fare in a temperature of 21c? I need a cool-water algae eater for my 35gal fancy goldfish tank, did have a lovely female albino bristlenose but she became aggressive and started to chew on my goldfish. She now has a new home in a friend's 90 gal community tank and I was looking into either Oto's or Hillstream Loaches as a replacement. Have a good few Amano shrimp in there but they're not much good for doing the glass, only the decor.

 

[paul_219]

Ottos are great fish to clean ur tank. They must be in group of 6 to be happy and healthy. They are very cute fish. U can feed them some algea wafers.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but how would Oto's fare in a temperature of 21c? I need a cool-water algae eater for my 35gal fancy goldfish tank, did have a lovely female albino bristlenose but she became aggressive and started to chew on my goldfish. She now has a new home in a friend's 90 gal community tank and I was looking into either Oto's or Hillstream Loaches as a replacement. Have a good few Amano shrimp in there but they're not much good for doing the glass, only the decor.

Goldfish would probably eat the oto's, goldfish have a habit of eating any fish small enough to fit in their mouths and slow enough to be caught. Hillstream loaches wouldn't make great tankmates with goldfish unless you have a lot of very powerful filtration, they live in a fast flowing river bed habitats in the wild and need a lot of oxygen to survive, they are also very sensitive fish and often difficult to acclimatise successfully to tanks in the long term.
Really there aren't a lot of fish that make good tankmates with goldfish- you are much better off finding the cause of the algae problem in the tank and dealing with that instead. Do you have any healthy live plants in the tank and have you tested the water for nitrates? Do you have any lighting in the tank and how long do you leave it on per day? What sort of algae do you have?