I purchased two Otos when I started having algae problems. They were difficult to find, only place that had them was a Pets Mart on the other side of town. They seemed to be doing well but two days ago I noticed one of them missing and yesterday both of them are missing. It's difficult to find small dead fish bodies in my tank, and Otos blend in very well with the river rocks I used. I can only assume that they are rotting away or the Bala Sharks ate them.

I've since purchased two more. One is doing very well the other has died. What gives? The other fish are doing well and chemically the water is fine.

According to the Otocinclus web site, its not uncommon to have new Otos die within the first several weeks of adding them to the tank.

There are countless reports of fishkeepers losing Otocinclus in the first few weeks of obtaining them. It doesn't seem to matter what type of tank the new fish are introduced to, they still drop like flies. Sometimes the entire group is lost, and at other times it's only a few. What's the deal?

Most hobbyists believe the trouble in keeping Otocinclus alive initially has to do with the whole capture/shipment process. Have you ever tried to net an Otocinclus among driftwood or heavily planted tanks? It's nearly impossible! Now imagine trying to catch otocinclus with a large net in a body of water filled with plants, driftwood, and rocks. That's exactly what the fish gatherers in South America are up against.

It is our belief that certain chemicals (Cyanide?) are added to the water either upstream or in a general area to slow down or temporarily paralyze these frisky little critters. The fish gatherers are then able to net them from the water in this weakened state. These chemicals could produce permanent damage to internal organs (such as the liver) and sometimes we will see hemorrhaging in the lower abdominal area in some stock.

The website also suggests that lack of algae at the fish store could cause them to starve. They suggest to look for well stocked tanks of Otos, but I have yet to find them locally (the two I bought last time were the only two in the tank).

Although Otos are cheap, it's not about the money. I really hate to have these guys die on me. I see no choice but to continue to purchase them until I can find some that will survive.

I previously wrote about the Algae bloom in my 80 gallon aquarium. On Thursday I received the 18 Watt Turbo-Twist 6X UV Sterilizer and installed it that day. My impression from reading various aquarium forums is the sterilizer would show an immediate result, even clean up the algae in a matter of hours.

I saw no changes in a few hours as I was led to believe. It did do it's job, but it took about four days. I saw the best results after leaving the lights off at night. I suspect it's taken so long becasue flow rate of my canister filter is less than what most people have for a tank my size. Most people seem to run their filters at least 2x the capacity of the tank. Since I have a 80 gallon tank, most people would run a filter capable of at least 160 gallons per hour. I am not most people.

My flow meter read about 100 gph before putting in the sterilizer, it now reads about 90 gph. The low flow is actually good for the sterilizer, the longer the water is exposed to the UV light, the more effective it is at killing the bugs (this sterilizer is rated for 200 - 400 gph). it might also mean that the flow rate is not fast enough to keep up with the algae growth in the light. Not sure on that however, but seems reasonable.

Now that the algae is under control I am only running the sterilizer part of the night and I will slowly ramp down the it's use to maybe once a week or less

Finally the plants had a immediate reaction to the reduction in algae. I could clearly see a increase in growth. The hope is they will start to grow vigorously enough that they are absorbing enough of the nutrients to starve out any algae that might try to take hold.

When I first set up this aquarium I immediately had a problem with a brown algae like substance growing on everything. In fact, I had the same problem with the 30 gallon I set up just prior to this one. This outbreak is not brown algae but diatoms.

My Gold Gourami seems to enjoy eating the diatoms off every surface of the aquarium. In fact he did a pretty good job of keeping up with the growth when he was in the 30 gallon tank. So much so that I didn't feed him at all for weeks and weeks. For the 80 gallon I purchased two Otocinclus Catfish which will also eat the diatoms. None of them have been able to keep up with the diatom growth in the 80 gallon. I've been using a magnetic glass scraper to clean the glass, hopefully the fish will take care of the rest over time. Since replacing the Actinic bulbs with more natural sunlight producing bulbs, the diatom growth as seemed to stopped or slow down significantly.

I really really hate it when I have to buy some sort of new hardware but it looks like the best solution to this problem is a UV sterilizer. UV light will kill single celled creatures like algae by damaging the DNA if they are exposed to the UV light long enough. I decided to go with the 18 Watt Turbo-Twist 6X UV Sterilizer which cost about $150. UV light will destroy all single celled critters, including viruses and good bacteria. Therefore it's only recommended to run when you have a problem.

I'm still waiting for the UV sterilizer to arrive. In the mean time I've done a 60% water change, which has helped quite a bit. The live plants are still pretty new, it might take a while for them to get established and start using up the nutrients in the water

The problems with being in the fish keeping hobby is bigger is never big enough. I've been spending the last week setting up my new acquisition a complete 80 gallon aquarium.

I had no plans to purchase something like this, but a friend needed to get rid of it.

It's been about 10 days since I set up my aquarium and I've suffered 2 losses. After a few days I did the testing for ammonia, nitrides and nitrates and everything looked good. I put in two Bala Sharks, they died almost instantly.

What a waste. As far as I can tell, my test kit chemical had degraded and wasn't giving accurate readings. I bought a new test kit which showed a high nitrite level. The tank has since settled down and I proceeded to add more fish.

I first added two White Clouds (Tanichthys albonubes), which really are not tropical fish but minnows that come from cool streams in China. They don't seem to mind the tropical environment and they were really cheap. Next I added a Gold Gourami and a Blue Grurami, both which are doing just fine.

It's been a long time since I had a aquarium set up. I was given a Eclipse tank for free and I have the perfect place for it right next the fire place.

I still have some work to do to the lighting. The original eclipse hood was broken and ugly, I ended up throwing that away and putting a regular glass hood on. I also need to clean up some of the calcium build up. I also ordered a inline heater to go along with my fancy canister filter.

The first fish will probably be bala sharks (Balantiocheilus melanopterus), they are very hardy and can tolerate the conditions of the new aquarium. From there I will probably put in a algae eater (Gyrinocheilus aymonieri), then freshwater angelfish (Pterophyllum).