Otocinclus affinis

[Jo Crane]

Yippee my Otocinclus affinis have spawned and hatched totally unexpected, they live in one of my shrimp tanks with the snowball & low grade CRS last night after a water change I noticed lots of baby crs, this morning I have been looking for them again when I noticed these tiny minute little wrigglers it was hard for my eyes to focus on them at first and being loads of snowball shrimps shrimplets in there I had to look twice, but fish for sure, smaller than the snowball shrimplets little sucker heads and wriggly tails, I have counted 5 on the glass and on cucumber I am quite excited about this as I have not bred ottos before, I did notice one of the ottos was very fat last week like she had swallowed a pea I thought they were way to small to spawn and had not noticed any eggs although the tank has a lot of plants and wood so they would be easy to miss, I have tried to take a picture but my camera is just not good enough and wont focus on such a speck when they get a little bigger (I hope they do) I will get some pictures but for now I am made up.
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[Doodles]

wow thats really cool:clap::clap:

look forward to some pics:yes::yes:

 

[N2Biomes]

Congrats, Jo! :woohoo: How big is your tank, and how many otos do you have in it? These are such cute fish.

 

[Jo Crane]

The tank is 100L only 3 ottos to clean the glass it is a shrimp breeding tank around 100+ CRS and snowball shrimps.
Temp 27oc
Ph 7.2
HMA cold water changes twice a week.
2 x sponge filters lots of plants, river gravel substrate.
I have been feeding the tank cucumber, courgette daily then Shirakura shrimp foods with additional flake and occasional frozen cyclops.
i hope the fry make it that would be cool

 

[N2Biomes]

Thanks for that, and fingers crossed that the fry survive!

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Jo I'm not sure it will be of any help, mine have spawned at least twice, the first time I didn't know anything about it because the first time I saw the fry it was feeding on the cucumber with the adults and was almost as big as they were. I subsequently found another 2 slightly smaller ones.

The other time I did see some of the fry when they were really tiny, just like you describe, really small with a big head and wriggling tadpole tail. The interesting bit was these were all amongst the roots of the Salvinia, right at the waters surface.

cheers Darrel

 

[Jo Crane]

I have spent ages today squinting into the tank there are lots of them zipping round they do seem to be very fond of the cucumber I cant wait until they get a little bigger and are easy to see I will be very scared doing water changes for a while now LOL

 

[Brengun]

Hadn't thought of moving the otos to the shrimp tank. Good tip!
Just got to figure out how I can catch four otos out of a 4ft planted tank.

I did move a spawning mop from rainbows to the shrimp tank and there is at least one fry but they are nearly as hard to see as the the baby shrimpettes.

 

[Stan]

Any updates or pics? I've had eggs but no love yet.

 

[windy]

well done jo :woohoo::woohoo:

 

[Irene0100]

brilliant, well done.
are you adding any food especailly for them such as mirco worms or liquifry?
would be good to see pics of adults too. there are quite a few types of Otto and would be nice to see what the Otocinclus affinis look like too.

 

[Jo Crane]

Will get some pics tomorrow for you the adults are small but the female is very fat all the time getting bigger before spawning i have noticed they do a spawning dance zipping along the glass at this point the female looks like she has swallowed a pea

 

[Brengun]

I emptied all residents out of my 350Ltr pond and put my 1male and 3 fat female ottos in the pond. It has lots of plants, lots of green algae and is heated to 23C.

How long you reckon it will take for the pond surface to become a seething mass of oto fry? :clap:

 

[Irene0100]

good luck with that brengun. lucky to have a climate where can put interesting fish out in a pond. that would save worrying where to put another tank! just take over the garden!