Tropical Fish Forums

[unissuh]

Managed to find myself some Otocinclus cocama recently, been looking for about 6 months.



I thought the retailer made a typo when she said how large they were but she wasn't. The little guy above is just over 4 cm TL long (if you squint right, theres a cm ruler at the bottom of the picture) and he's the smallest of the bunch! I have a couple that are definitely over 5 cm.
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Fishing in the Rivers of Light

[diademhill]

Nice - what do they measure SL?

[unissuh]

Average seems to be about 3.5-4 cm SL. There is one that looks like it's about 4.5 but unfortunately it doesn't want to come to the front of the tank where I can measure it.



I'm thinking I have about 5 males, 1 female and a couple of unknowns - hoping I'm wrong and have more females.
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Fishing in the Rivers of Light

[UncleWillie]

Very cool little fish. Glad to see you could find what you were looking for. How did you Oto eggs from a few months ago turn out? Also, are those blackworms in your substrate, or am I just imagining things?

[unissuh]

The Otocinclus vestitus fry went pretty average. I think I ended up with about 20-25 juveniles of which I culled about half due to a kink just before the caudal fin. Last time I got a picture of them was at ~2 cm TL before I transferred them all into the tank that houses my chocolate gourami (which I've now moved the parents into as well). I think that might have been a mistake because they are way too good at hiding in there. Not even sure whether I've lost any since then?? Only time I can see them is at night when their little white bellies against the glass stand out.

http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/928/dsc02584vr.jpg

That said the parents are still laying eggs. They laid another bunch in the tank before I moved them out and moved in the O. cocama. Have some ~1 week old fry swimming around in there but not planning to actively raise them.

Yes, I think those are blackworms. I seed all my tanks with them. They don't seem to grow very big in this tank but they replicate like wildfire and gather where the food is. I think they're very good at cleaning up food that the Otocinclus miss, and theres a lot to clean up!
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Fishing in the Rivers of Light

[unissuh]

Very pleasant surprise today!





4 and counting...
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Fishing in the Rivers of Light

[UncleWillie]

Ahh I see a wiggler! Congrats. I can't believe how large oto eggs are compared to that narrow little body. Best of luck with raising them up. It would be nice to be able to keep a population going since those guys are so hard to find for purchase.

[unissuh]

Few more pictures of the spawning process:

Female:


Male:


Cleaning leaves together:


T-position:


But wait, theres a video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3oW-OQ9XeQ
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Fishing in the Rivers of Light

[Marcos Avila]

What a cute little Oto!

Unissuh, please organize your great material above into a submission for the Gallery (including the video). I finally managed to get back to regular updating activity on the site, so it shouldn't take long for the page to be created...
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Success with a fish/tank is measured in YEARS, not months or weeks...

[unissuh]

Might be because you're in the same sort of occupation, but the way you phrase that is uncannily like how my lab supervisor sounds when he likes a new data set!

Will do, when I have time - hopefully shouldn't take too long. Does this add to my impact factor? (Hah, if only.)
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Fishing in the Rivers of Light