Back around the first of the year Petsmart was having a sale on Otocinclus for $1 each. Each spring for the past couple of years I’ve wanted to try spawning these fish so I picked up a couple bags for a later project.
They have been eating lots of Repashy “Soilent Green” and fattened up very nicely.
The spawning set-up is a standard 10 gallon tank with some anubias and crypts. It has a course black substrate and the water is very soft being almost pure rain water. I have a small heater set to keep the temperature at 78 °F.
The fish must be happy because today while doing water changes I found the first fry!
If I can get these fry to adult hood it will be interesting to see if tank raised Otos are a bit more hardy than the store bought variety.
Here are some photos of the fry just a couple of days later…..
I too would like to hear an update on these breeding project — were you able to raise the fry to adults and where they hearty and still alive today? Thanks!
Hi Dennis, congrats! There is so few reports of breeding that fish succesfully. I’m impressed that you managed to do that so easily. The only interesting thing is – did yoor fry manage to survive and are they hardier than their wild parents? They are pretty cheap and widely available fish, so not that many professionals are interested in breeding them, and another thing – mostly americans report those rare axamples of those cutties having fry.