Otocinclus, alone, or school?

[Dark Rose]

I'm reading contradictory information...

It seems like what I'm reading on these are split between "keep alone, or in a school" or "keep in a small school".

School suggestions seem to be anywhere from 4 minimum to 6 minimum...

Which is the best way to keep these? I've got one, then started seeing more info about keeping them in a small school... It's in a 29 gallon tank right now, with 5 ghost shrimp at the moment. My LFS store has more, so I was thinking about picking up another 2 or 3 if that's best for them.

Thanks!

 

[lennym]

it partially depends on how much algae you have. most ottos in LFS have been imported and will be thin/very thin, and this is the reason they are sometimes considered tricky, if however, you have a good amount of algae and little competition then a shoal of 6 is good, I have seen and kept them singly, namely as glass algae control in small shrimp tanks, and this seems not to bother them but when kept in a shoal they graze together.

 

[robmcd]

I have 3 and they don't really hang out together.

 

[Dark Rose]

I've got a lot of some white algae stuff growing (asked about it in another thread) and I got 3 more Otos today, and another 5 shrimp. Thought they were ghost shrimp, but they're actually Amano shrimp... Fun to watch though.
Will see how the Otos behave over the weekend...

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