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Otocinclus affinis

Hi all,

I have two oto's. One is slightly smaller than the other. And I got that critter a little over a month ago. Recently over the past two weeks the larger one has gotten *suspiciously* large-bellied. Can anyone tell if it's pregnant or just really, really fat? From the side it doesn't look as big as you'd think, from an underside view its belly is wider than it's body. I'm gonna name it Jellybelly...

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They don`t realy get "pregnant" I`d say it`s probably a "spawnable" female. If you have a male in the tank as well,with luck,you will get several egg masses,wich hatch out into litle tiny otos!

Best of luck,
Noah.:)
 
Oh, spawnable...then it must have a BUNCH of eggs in there! Here's another cute pic.

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Should I perhaps isolate this oto? I do have two zebra danios that like munching on fruit flies, so would I have to worry about them going for the lil' otos too?
 
I'd rather remove the danios if I was you. If the tank is well planted, sheltered, and contains warm, soft ,acidic water, who knows, they may spawn! The eggs are layed in corydoras style.
 
WOW, its a fatty prego fish
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 It died! This morning the poor thing was floating snout up! I'm not sure now if it had eggs or if it had some sort of disease or tumor. It hadn't been picked at by any of the other fish.
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Ohhh.! I`m so sorry! Maybe it was egg bound? Or maybe it had dropsy? Sorry for you`r loss:(
 
This has happened to me twice with this species....look carefuly for fry in the next 2 months....they might die after spawning.....I never managed to raise any of the mystery fry so I don't know what they were.....after thse losses I swicthed to rubber lip plecos....sorry for your loss..
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Thanks for your kind words. That was my favorite little guy in the tank. The albino corys come in at a close second.

I'm not sure what it had, I've been looking through some books from the library. My only guess could be that it had some sort of internal parasite, but the other fish seem to be fine. The other alternative was that it needed some prunes (those of you old enough know what I mean). I will look for fry but I don't think it dropped any eggs if it had any since it seemed to be just as large as the night before. I did notice the tiniest bit of red flush on its side and that it didn't eat much the day before. I assumed that would be normal however.

I'd love a pleco, but the tank isn't large enough at 15 gal. I don't believe in returning fish to the store after they get too large for a tank. Somehow that seems rude to the fish, when I adopt them, they're staying!
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I still have another oto, who has been moving around a lot more and looking for his friend. I might have to get him another buddy, though now I will have to think about it.
 
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