Otto cats?

[Bobears]

I know this is a planted tank forum but I assume most of you keep otto cats for algae. I've been through 12 now and they all keep dying one by one. My water quality is good enough to keep rams. But, I don't know if I can keep murdering these little guys. I've read that they use chemicals to trap these guys, could this be a cause or are they just hard to keep???

 

[edtriou]

How long have you had them?
I've also heard that they use arsenic to catch them, but if they made it a month or two in your tank, that's probably not it.

Since you ruled out water conditions, and it's probably not predators otherwise you would know. So the only other thing that comes to mind is starvation. I have a planted tank (with rams as well) and have noticed that their kind of picky on what algae they'll eat, not just anything.

I supplement mine with algae tablets and that seems to work fine. I've had my 'swarm' for years without incidence. Modulo one that I'm (still) missing, but I think I know who that predator was, which is no longer in that tank.

Ed

 

[Bobears]

I've only had them a couple of weeks. They eat fine at first and then they park on the glass and don't move much. Later I will see them swimming funny and "falling" to the substrate where they die. I do use algae wafers because of the corys. I hate this cause these liitle guys are cool and my wife loves them. Her love hasn't killed me yet, so that can't be it either.

 

[Plecosterone]

I had that problem before and I think it was the shipment. I bought 15 of them from one store (good LFS) and all but 3 died. I bought 15 more when the next shipment came in and only lost one. Same tank and same water params.

 

[Bizzaro]

So the only other thing that comes to mind is starvation.

Mine get really hungry at times they eat one of my plants. the same leaf over and over again. Just add wafers to the tank. When i feed mine they sit around for a day or 2 like they just eat like pigs and dont wanna go to work.

 

[arowana man]

otos require exelent water perams. my first 2 died but ive had one for over a year now.