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Ottos eating Hygrophila

Sacha

Member
Joined
3 Jan 2014
Messages
992
Location
London
I have just noticed there are small holes in my hygrophila (it's being eaten).
The only possible culprits are the ottos.
Does this mean they're starving?
How can I feed them, to stop them resorting to eating the plants?
They've ignored all the food I've put in up to now.
 
Otos hardly even eat Algae IMO. The plants must be facing some nutrient deficiency? I feed my otos cucumbers and they go after the blood worms and other stuff that is dropped in for their tank mates. :)

Cheers,

Karthik
 
In fact i am watching one of them chomp on a leaf right now. And yes, the leaf is very healthy
 
In fact i am watching one of them chomp on a leaf right now. And yes, the leaf is very healthy

Wow.. that's something new.. Never came across Otos doing that in my tanks. Have you been feeding them anything till now?
 
Yes I tried feeding them algae wafers, courgette, cucumber etc. They didn't know what it was.

They ignore all the other food that goes in the tank e.g. bloodworm, brine shrimp, daphnia, tubifex, rotifers, cyclops, red plankton..........
 
Otos can be picky eaters, the only visable algae that I see them take on are diatoms, they pretty much as far as I could see leave the other types of algae alone.

Mine would readily have courgettes though. Most of the time, you just have to constantly put the vege in until they take 'em. I have also tried carrots before for my shrimps and the Otos would try them too, they don't stay there and eat but they constantly came back to it to graze.
 
I agree, mine aren't bothered by algae wafers. I haven't specifically fed them in about 4 months. They like cucumber but they eat that sporadically.
I can't remember Sacha but do you have wood in your tank? Mine spend 90% of their time feeding off what's on that.


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Yeah. Other than washing the cucumber, nothing else. Been feeding it to them from about a year now. They also eat blood worms sometime. I've got a video of them chewing on blood worms. Will post it sometime next week as I'm travelling.

Cheers,

Karthik


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I have just noticed there are small holes in my hygrophila (it's being eaten).
The only possible culprits are the ottos.
Does this mean they're starving?
How can I feed them, to stop them resorting to eating the plants?
They've ignored all the food I've put in up to now.
Can you post a picture Ive been having a similar problem and cant decide on the culprit .
 
You can boil it or chuck the courgette in after chopping it. Boiling it would mean you can't leave it in the tank as long as you could without boiling though. I'm inclined to go for courgette rather than cucumber due to more nutrients.
 
Yes I tried feeding them algae wafers, courgette, cucumber etc. They didn't know what it was.

They ignore all the other food that goes in the tank e.g. bloodworm, brine shrimp, daphnia, tubifex, rotifers, cyclops, red plankton..........
I've a suspicion that it's species (or possibly learned) behavior, I recently added newly imported Otos (whatever species) - tank 1, seems there's enough algae etc, tank 2, they decimated the soft leaves of Tropica's Nymphoides hydrophylla 'Taiwan' - the (still) emerse growth was obviously "eaten" (few ragged edges remain for each leaf) immediately after otos were added to the tank.
The otos seem to spend most of their time on the glass,wood etc now but it'll be interesting to see if plant can actually get any growth.
 
Ramshorns, Oto's, cherries and Amano have been eating leaves off Nymph. hyd. when just planted in my testing of the plant, too.
Every time it has been due to the emergent leaves not adapting well - the little Bast...'s can smell a decaying leaf long before we see it :confused: and then go for it. Very effective control-team, actually.
The plants have allways been able to produce new, adapted leaves, though, thanks to the incredible fast growt-rate of this plant............and these were left untouched......
 
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