My Otos won't eat...

[Zerileous]

Okay, so I have 3 otos in my 10g. As you all know this is not gong to be enough algae to sustain them, especially with mystry stnails trouncing about. I was fully aware of this when purchasing them, and had planned to suppliment their feeding.

I have tried wafers based on Spirulina, wafers based on fish meal (before I realised they were not really algae). I have also tried zuccini (a large chunk on a rock, and a thin strip on the glass)...blanched for 30 seconds in the microwave. The snails love the stuff, but the oto's dont show interest.

Its clearly not an issue of competition, the snails are certainly greedy about the stuff once they get to it, but its not like they can nip or anythihg, just hoard a bit. Plus it takes them a good while to get to the stuff while the otos could be there in seconds if they wanted to.

I guess I need to keep trying different veggies :( Any other suggestions for getting these guys to eat. One of them might have a full enough belly, but the other 2 certainly dont!

[Algenco]

my oto's love their zucchini, but, they don't touch it until it has been in the tank for at least 12 hours. The snails maybe taking over before it gets to the consistency the Oto's want.

[Zerileous]

hrm, yeah i didn't leave it in for more than 4 hrs. Maybe I need to isolate the snails for this? Or maybe I have just gotten myself an excuse to develop MTS!

But before jumping the gun, does anyone else have suggestions for how to handle this? I really like the little guys!

[RobbieG]

I would feed them what you intend to feed them going forward - when they get hungry they will eat. If you plan on giving them a little zuchini every few days going forward give it to them every few days now (same with algae wafers) fish can go a long time without eating - they won't starve.

If you go out of your way to train them to eat something you are not going to have available going forward you are going to have to retrain them when you don't have it anymore.

[Mark Lathrop]

Spinach leaves. I usually park one in one of my fake plants to keep it from floating to the top. I'll keep it in there for up to 3 days sometimes. Usually by then the entire leaf is history, and the stem will be floating up at the top. If they've never experienced an algae wafer before, keep tossing them in there daily, and eventually they'll figure out that it's food. It took a while for mine to take. But just a few minutes ago, I saw one sucking on one for the first time. I always thought it was the corys that were eating them (although it is at least some of the time).

Your Otos need time to figure out that Zuchinni is actually food, so give it some time. Now mine tend to figure out I've put some fresh zuchinni in the tank within 20-30 minutes, and that's fast! The first time, it took about 15 hrs. before we noticed my Oto on a chunk of it, and I had to do a water change afterwards, but at least he was full! :)