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Seed shrimp (?) attached to my Oto

13K views 7 replies 6 participants last post by  NeonFlux 
#1 ·
I'm afraid I don't have a picture to show you guys (maybe this evening I can snap one) but one of my Otocinclus is being given a bit of a hard time by what I believe to be seed shrimp.

They've been in the tank for ages now, I've learnt to ignore them for the most part, but now a large group of them have attached themselves. I have 3 Otos in this tank and the others are fine, just this one is affected.

The fish itself doesn't look unwell, just seems stressed out by the attention of these bugs. Has anyone come across this before? I am aware that there is the possibility that these are not seed shrimp... :frown:

Regular water changes are carried out and this is a well established tank with no previous problems. Only other inhabitants are RCS.

Thanks for all/any help!
 
#5 ·
Unfortunately my Oto died night before last :(



I've had them in this tank for around 5 months and no problems. Only inhabitants have (ever) been 3 Oto's and numerous RCS.

I've not really lost many fish before like this so can I ask if the yellow belly is normal?



I've also tried to get better pictures of the bugs:





Thanks all.
 
#6 ·
they look like seed shrimp to me.

if they are clustering around objects, watch the spot they cluster at. i used to raise them for fish food by the millions, and every time i saw them cluster up, they would leave a little patch of eggs behind.

i have seen them cluster on fairy shrimp before, but not fish. i cant say that i could rule that out, however...

usually, when they clustered on a fairy shrimp, they ended up killing it. fairy shrimp are pretty delicate though...

this is a video of the seed shrimp i used to culture:
http://s1242.photobucket.com/user/sjveck/media/20120714_102607.mp4.html

i wasnt sure of the best way to culture them, so i set up a continuous culture while doing my normal batch cultures with the rest of them. in this video, you can see what the egg masses look like. at about 18 seconds, you can see a very large one on the front glass. the hornwort and the airstone is covered in them as well.
http://s1242.photobucket.com/user/sjveck/media/IMG_0739.mp4.html



if you want to get rid of them, the only method i know of is biological control. a young nothobranchius killi will absolutely destroy them, but will also eat anything it can fit in its mouth...

i do not think it killed your fish. i dont think they are a problem, but if you want to get rid of them, i dont really know of any safe ways besides adding a fish that will eat them. not even high CO2 will kill them. i once even poured sparkling soda into their tank... they just went to the surface and waited it out.
i had plenty to experiment with...
 
#8 ·
Hey auban, you have a lot of those seed shrimps haha. Mind sending me some?

Anyway, Duffmanj, sorry to see that your otto passed.. RIP to that little catfish.
 
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