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Nano Walstad tank startup

Wow excellent stuff. Good capture on the Otto bonking. Hopefully you will have some more babies. I use Sera micron which is a powdered food with a large amount of spirulina in it to feed tiny rainbowfish fry. You could use that or spirulina powder mixed with a little aquarium water and pipette into the tank. Careful with quantities though, keep to small doses.
 
Thanks sanj. It's going to be hard as there's just one little otto in this tank and a few baby shrimp I couldn't catch.
I was actually taking down the tank completely when I saw him/her so all plants are in a bucket, all shrimp in another tank as I was ready to take the substrate out and put soil.

There are diatoms forming on the glass since I disturbed the tank so hopefully this will give him a head start and I'll try feeding blanched zucchini. If he makes it, great, if not, at least I can set my tank back :)
 
Taking videos while the otto baby is still alive. I have slight elevated reading of ammonia. Test shows 0.1ppm. I did a large 40-50% water change and dosed with prime. I am gutted now I ripped the plants out and all the crude I released must be causing a slight reading. I did compare it to my other tanks and the colour is definitely greenish on the jbl test where my other tanks are yellow.

Anyway, he seems unaffected so far(hopefully) and is munching onto something on the glass.

Edit: Typed the ammonia level wrong. I had a 0.1ppm reading, not 0.2ppm though it makes no difference to the poor thing.

 
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The water tested clear now and I was looking for the little guy everywhere, couldn't see him. I had put a zucchini yesterday that wouldn't stay put on the glass and had fallen in a awkward position on the sand so one side was hidden to me and here he is, waving it's little tail between the snails munching on it. :)
 
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I am obsessed with this guy :) He'll probably die on me when I don't expect but he's trying to survive anyway and is picture worthy despite my poor camera and skills. Here he is with his bunch of new friends :)

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Since I ripped the plants out in that otto fry tank brown diatoms now coating the glass and today I see a tinge of green dust too on it. I left the light 12hrs last few days. I wonder if I actually did good for the little guy this way as he/she is happily polishing the surfaces and the "parent" otto tank is a tad too clean in contrast. The adult ottos seem to have almost eaten what had build up. I increased the light back to 8hrs there and will keep it that way as otherwise it can't sustain enough algae. I just hope I grow the right type if it grows.

The ludwiga has grown pink tips at the surface although its not a red species even in high light, looks nice enough.
The tank is crying for a trim but I want to use some plants in the fry otto tank once it's available for planting. The fry is doing well so far and today he looks a bit more like an actual otto.

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The dilemma I am having now is how long to leave the blanched zucchini for. It goes very mushy eventually but it seems that's when the little one stays on it the longest. The first piece was eventually eaten fully with the help of the snails but since I am intending to have a piece at all times now for the little one maybe it's a bit too much on the bioload. I am not sure really, the water tests fine and I've been doing 10% water changes daily.

Todays' picture. The glass is getting populated with all sorts of algae now without the plants in.
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Hi all,
sciencefiction said:
blanched zucchini for. It goes very mushy eventually but it seems that's when the little one stays on it the longest. The first piece was eventually eaten fully with the help of the snails but since I am intending to have a piece at all times now for the little one....and I've been doing 10% water changes daily
Click to expand...
Should be fine, if you don't blanch it it will stay intact a bit longer, but as you've found Otos really like it when it is a fairly slimy microbial soup.

cheers Darrel
 
Thanks Darrel and Parotet. I don't blanch the zucchini for the plecos as they eat the lot of it fresh. But for a baby otto I have no idea. My old 4 ottos never took to either blanched or fresh so I am not sure. The newer ones are loving blanched ones. I have to try a fresh one and see because it doesn't fall apart at all if fresh but it's normally eaten before it becomes mushy by the more vigorous eaters which is a problem with ottos.
 
Every single creature that I can see in both my tanks even down at a macro level will devour any Spirulina or Chlorella I add. If I add it to the shrimp tank by using a tiny amount diluted with tank water via a pipette, the tanks substrate turns white within minutes due to the fauna there rising to search it out and eat it. I have to get sneaky with it and mix it with Genchem Recipe to thicken it a little so it comes out the pipette like toothpaste, this way I can strategically place it where the shrimps can get to it before the snails and substrate fauna do. If I thicken it a little more then I can use it like a paste and coat something that sinks to substrate or floats on the surface or even smear it onto the glass walls of the tank. For completeness I also use Genchems shrimp supplements Biozyme (Protease, a-Amylase, Cellulose) and Aminovita-P (Amino Acids, Vitamins & Enzymes) and occasionally garlic powder in the mix, I feed both tanks with it since i have shrimp in both but the fish adore this mix the most. I can hand feed all my fish with a pipette loaded with the stuff, they get vaguely curious any time I pick up the fish food tub next to the tank but if they see me holding a pipette they go nuts, I will feel their physical contact on the pipette the moment the tip touches the water because they go at it like a pack of sharks. Occasionally I mix a paste up with the whole lot of ingredients listed above with a variety of thawed frozen worm mixed in and then coat a bead tied to a short piece of fishing line hanging from a fishing float, I then pull up a chair and watch as the fish go into a hierarchical feeding frenzy as the bead goes in the water.

Spirulina and Chlorella are both superfoods, you can buy packets and tubs of the stuff from health food shops, its not cheap though at £30 a kilo for Spirulina and £47 a kilo for Chlorella, thankfully you only need grams of the stuff, I bought a quarter kilo and quickly realised after first using it that I had just bought a lifetimes supply, lol.

I'm sure a Spirulina Dip Coated piece of zucchini would entice your baby otto.

:)
 
Thanks everyone. I'll certainly research the stuff you are recommending X3. It's just that in a tank populated with a few snails and one fry its hard to feed anything without it going moldy and compromise things. So far I haven't added any food bar a zucchini piece at all times. If it doesn't work out this time I'll try a different approach next time if there's one :)

Here is short video of the otto fry from today. Please turn down the volume as the background noise is horrible.

 
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