spleenharvester
Member
Hi all
I'm having quite a lot of trouble keeping my Otocinclus alive. I've had 18 so far since November, and 7 have died - 3 different Otocinclus species from 4 different sellers. They are fed blanched vegetables regularly and the tank is well planted, so are very plump, well fed and generally very active. There's rarely ever any signs of illness, it's so odd - they just suddenly drop dead.
The only possibilities I can think of is that (a) about 3/4 of them have come through the post on Ebay which may stress them further, and (b) something I'm adding to the tank is stressing them physiologically. The only two things I add to the tank are TNC Complete, dosed regularly to keep nitrates at 20ppm; and Seachem Fluorish Excel, 5mL added/day. There's not really any information on whether either of these are toxic to otocinclus. Fluorish Excel would be my prime suspect I think, given glutaraldehyde is a sterilant and supposedly Fluorish Excel's active ingredient is a derivative of glutaraldehyde.
If it helps at all my parametres are below (measured via API drop kit):
NH3: 0
NO2: 0
NO3: 10~20ppm
pH: 7.5
KH: 7
GH: 10
Tank size: 180L
Temperature: 25.5*C
Thanks everybody
I'm having quite a lot of trouble keeping my Otocinclus alive. I've had 18 so far since November, and 7 have died - 3 different Otocinclus species from 4 different sellers. They are fed blanched vegetables regularly and the tank is well planted, so are very plump, well fed and generally very active. There's rarely ever any signs of illness, it's so odd - they just suddenly drop dead.
The only possibilities I can think of is that (a) about 3/4 of them have come through the post on Ebay which may stress them further, and (b) something I'm adding to the tank is stressing them physiologically. The only two things I add to the tank are TNC Complete, dosed regularly to keep nitrates at 20ppm; and Seachem Fluorish Excel, 5mL added/day. There's not really any information on whether either of these are toxic to otocinclus. Fluorish Excel would be my prime suspect I think, given glutaraldehyde is a sterilant and supposedly Fluorish Excel's active ingredient is a derivative of glutaraldehyde.
If it helps at all my parametres are below (measured via API drop kit):
NH3: 0
NO2: 0
NO3: 10~20ppm
pH: 7.5
KH: 7
GH: 10
Tank size: 180L
Temperature: 25.5*C
Thanks everybody