The otos are coming!

[AmyLynn]

And I'm not ready. My 80w shop light bit the dust so I'm down to just 40 watts of flourescent t-12. I've been putting off buying the t-5 fixture I want until Christmas and since I've put that off I also have not put any live plants in the tank.

Am i going to be able to keep these little guys fat and happy until I can finish setting up? Or do I need to bite the bullet and get the lights and plants NOW?

There should be 8 of them I think and they'll be going in the 55g. What can I feed them this time of year that I'll be able to buy in a small town grocery store???

[AmyLynn]

Nobody wants to help me???? *sniffle*

Maybe I should have posted this in the general aquarium area???

[robflanker]

You can boil up cucumber, or zucchini

Also, they'll eat algae wafers which can be bought at most LFS

[Sarkazmo]

I've had NO luck with Algae wafers but I had great luck with a slice of cucumber! Several have mentioned that they had trouble getting Otos to eat algae wafers. I was feeding Hikari at the time so these were great wafers. It took about a day for them to get interested but they liked it and came back for more. You can leave a fresh slice of cucumber in the tank for about three days but no longer. Mine actually got ate before three days were up though. The Otos and snails had a food orgy. All I ended up removing was this super thin strip of cucumber rind.

Sark

[AmyLynn]

I think I'll be able to get cucumber through the winter at the grocery store, but I'm pretty sure zucchini is out. I have a couple of bags of algae wafers and even if they don't eat them the platies seem to love them. LOL

Trying to talk myself out of splurging and getting my new light so that I can go ahead and plant. I know they'll be much much happier with live plants.

[robflanker]

Why will they be happy with live plants?

They eat algae....

[AmyLynn]

I know several others on here have said that they prefer planted tanks. With my dim lighting I don't have a whole lot of algae at the moment. Unless you count the black beard algae, but I read that they won't eat that anyways. I currently have a total of 4 silk plants in the tank and no plans to get more since I'm going to go planted.

[robflanker]

They do prefer planted tanks, but if you don't have any algae...then even if you have plants - what are they going to eat?

[AmyLynn]

I didn't say i didn't have ANY algae. I said, due to my currently dim lighting I don't have MUCH algae. My plans were to be planted by now with better lighting. That hasn't happened.

[robflanker]

Ok im just checking that your not expecting the plants to make any difference in your ability to feed the otos.

[AmyLynn]

I'm expecting the plants to make for much happier little otos.