planted tank oto problem

[its_an_obsession]

not quiet an aquascaping but i figure the section has the most oto keepers. just set up 20G LONG planted tank tohouse shrimp and an oto.

heres where problem could have started...i bought some black top fin gravel rinsed it then poured it into the tank... i notice some sort of chemical looking clusters, very small, on the top of the water. but guess is coming off the gravel but grvel is supposed to be safe so i ignore it. fill the tnak up and take some filter media from my estanblished tank to get the nitrogen cycle started. i put the plants in then i got an oto. next morning is was alive but kinda upside down and then he swim around and do this whole thing... so i got worried about the water and i put him in a net in my 40g and he seemed to rebound with in 30 minutes. any one have any ideas as to what could be the problem?

ph of tap water is about 7.6 and not sure if the hardness could affect it but im pretty sure water is pretty hard.

 

[excuzzzeme]

Do a water test and check parameters. Is the water de-chlorinated? Is the water temp in an acceptable range?

 

[its_an_obsession]

checked all parameters today.
ph: 7.4
ammonia: 0
nitrite:0
nitrate:0
gh: 8 degrees of hardness
kh: 4 degrees of hardness

 

[chesterthehero]

otos can be touchy depending on how they were caught and how well they were cared for by the lfs you bought them from. i bought a bunch and they were ALL emaciated (i felt bad for them after looking at them). the place i got them from apparently was only dropping in flake food for the other fish claiming the algae in the tank was more than enough for the otos. it wasnt. otos need to be fed just like any other fish. ive heard of people losing lots of these little guys. it could just be you didnt do anything wrong, but there was just something wrong with the oto you got.

-inkyjenn

 

[Caoboy]

Let your tank cycle. Just because you put cycled media in there doesn't make your tank instantly cycled.

 

[chesterthehero]

but you have to add an ammonia source to keep the bacteria from dying off (aka, small amounts of ammonia for cleaning, something rotting like a small piece of shrimp that you remove once you get fish, or some cheap crap fish you dont worry about)