Oto Spawning!

Today was supposed to be a relatively benign day; sure, I had a bunch of plant trimming to do (trying to get some light down to the substrate and my little strand of glosso), but nothing too fancy. As you can see, it was plenty overgrown:


However, on the heels of my cory catfish (somewhat) successfully breeding, I noticed my oto catfish going at it today (as mentioned on Aquamaniacs). Mainly, it's two males chasing around a single female. I thought it was all show until I noticed eggs on various leaves:


Typically there were only one or two, although I did find this grouping of four on my amazon sword:


I clipped the leaves that I found them on and put most of them under the duckweed in the breeding net. Fearing that the snails would snack on them, I tried to remove the bigger ones I could get my fingers on. The four on the amazon sword were a little more difficult. It turns out that these eggs aren't as sticky as the cory eggs, and I "dropped" one, which the zodiac loach ate before it hit the floor. I also put a wendtii leaf with a couple eggs on it in the 10 gallon tank and crossed my fingers.

I managed to catch the oto mating dance on video:


Since they were hiding behind a plant during copulation, here is a quick video of the relative orientation of the male (U-shape) and the female during spawning (right before the zodiac loach comes to check things out):



Meanwhile, I cleared out so much rotala indica, that the golden kuhlii loaches felt the need to flee and find a new home behind the breeding net (I was very concerned while trimming that I'd cut one of them in half).


A view of the trimmed tank:


As long as I'm telling you how busy a day it was, I might as well add that I moved the "one-eyed" cory from the 10-gallon tank back to the main tank. His fins aren't in the best of shape, but then again, he's joining cories with their own fin problems.

Also, for posterity's sake:

• kH: 10 degrees
  
• pH: 7.0 (30 ppm CO2)
  
• GH: ~25 degrees
  
• Nitrates: 50+ ppm
  

Misgivings...

I spied a juvenile cory cat in the breeding net tonight (not unusual to do) and decided to take some video. *Sniff* They grow up so fast....


I was paying a close eye to my rasboras tonight, and I noticed white spots on some of their lower lips. With panic setting in, I prepared to move my hospitalized cory back to the 30-gallon tank, and the handful of "sick" rasboras to the QT. I calmed myself down a little bit once I realized the suspicious white patches were consistently on the lower lip, always perfectly centered. That helped me rationalize that it was an anatomical feature that some of them shared (though I remained wary that some did not appear to have it). You can bet I'll be keeping a close eye on them, though.

The Devil is in the Details

A lot of little stuff to do today. Having noticed the slow decline of the corkscrew val, I concluded that in addition to the fact that it was probably suffering from a lack of CO2, it was kind of shaded by the log stump. Looking into the hood, I realized the reflectors there were pitifully small. The rest of the black hood was probably not providing very good coverage across the aquarium. Therefore, I attached some aluminum foil with double-sided tape to most of the hood's canopy.

I also decided I was ready to add the Fabco valve on a trial basis. Having heard back from Rex Grigg about its mechanics (i.e. the lock screws on the handle served to attach it to the post, not to set it in place). However, when I set it up in-line, even with the valve full open, there was no bubbling into the Hagn ladder. I tried an arrangement of configurations in order to isolate the check valve as the problem.

Sure enough, the arrow was pointed in the direction of airflow, but just in case, I flipped it around. No change. No that I was confident in my ability to provide adequate pressure, but I tried blowing into the check valve, and was unable to feel any air coming out. I used a paperclip to push on the (I guess it was a ball) valve, and sure enough, something gave. Now I was able to blow air through relatively easily. I'm guessing it was sitting unused long enough that the copper loosely bound together.

Not to be crass, but my cory that's being quarentined there has much more value to me than the ghost shrimp, so I will only be bubbling CO2 in under supervision while he's in there, in case anything were to go wrong. In fact, I just completed a 40% or so water change, and I am starting a second dose of Fungus Clear. I think I've halted the infection, because his right eye appears clear, but I'm doing this second dose just to be safe, hoping his left barbels can start to heal and grow back.

When I'm ready to return him, I got a good suggestion from jaidexl from Aquamaniacs on how to use a "bottle trap" to capture the zodiac loach. It shouldn't be to hard to outsmart a fish, right? So anyway, if I bait him into a trap, my plan would be to put him in the 10 gallon for a period of time and see if the cories improve dramatically (I'd probably spare the ghost shrimp and move them into the 30 gallon). Then I could decide whether to keep him or donate him to a LFS.

Sunday Maintenance

I did another 15% water change on the 30 gallon. The baby cories are active; I'm hoping I can move them to the 10 gallon before too long.


While I was snooping around, the zodiac loach came out to check things out. When I flinched, he darted underneath the driftwood by the amazon sword that I had though I blocked. In fact, the smaller driftwood I used had moved, so I replaced it once I saw he had moved to his normal cave.

Speaking of the amazon sword, I recently posted a swap proposal on The Planted Tank Swap n Shop forum. It will pain me greatly to get rid of it, but it's just outgrown the tank, and I'd like to have some light reaching the substrate so I can play around with the foreground. On that note, I asked for HC (Hemianthus callitrichoides) and riccia in return. We'll see if there are any takers. Then I'll have to figure out how to ship it...

I noticed for the first time that that my MTS are dual colored. The tips are red, and the bases are the normal brown. It leaves me wondering if that is a particular species feature, or if the water quality changed and had an effect.

While I was rummaging around, I pulled up a few pieces of slate that I had used to make that cave way back when. The idea being that since it was being used a whole lot anyway, I'd free up the space for the cories to congregate, free of worry about being attack by the zodiac loach (ideally). They were all too happy to start rooting around in all of the substrate I kicked up in the process, but they seem to be unfomfortable there when I am standing in the kitchen. Also, it seems I displaced (but hopefully didn't injure) a kuhlii loach that swam around frantically as I went to work.