I just bought 3 oto's on monday, and added them to my 10 gal tank. This tank is overstocked right now with 8 GloFish, 4 peppered Cory's, and now these 3 oto's. The tank has the original hob filter plus a rena xp3. I'm currently building a stand for my 55 that all these fish well be moved to. The tank is cycled but the xp3 is in the process of building it's bio filter. Last water test was tuesday morning, results were; ph 7.6, ammonia .25, nitrite 0, nitrate 10. I did a50% water change after the test to get rid of the ammonia. The temp is kept around 74.5. Water changes are done at the minimum every two weeks.

One of the oto's has a little peach colored spot above his left gill, he's the only one. What could this be? Tuesday evening i put a couple pieces of zucchini in the tank, later that night all 3 oto's had lost their color, this morning they were completely back to normal, and the stripe is even more pronounced than when i got them. Not sure if that is related at all. Hope this enough info, here's a blurry pic.

You could probably raise your water temp' a degree or two... I've got Oto's in 80 degree water, and when I had Corys, they were in 78-79 degree water.

Fish loose their colour at night when the lights go out and they are sleeping. It comes back during the day when the lights come on. Were the lights out when you saw the loss of colour?

I'm not really seeing a problem with the Oto in the pic.... just keep an eye out and see if you notice the area changing in colour or texture at all, or if you notice any other signs of illness. If he's eating and pooping and swimming normally and the spot doesn't change, he's probably fine.

P.S. Your sand looks soooooooo soft! Lucky little Otos! (If you look closely, they blink at you!) XD Really, they do!

__________________
20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981

Thanks for the reply, I guess their reputation as a delicate fish has me a little on edge. The spot in question is the little circle at the top right of the red/pink area on his underside. It is peach colored but the camera washed it out. He has been as active as the other two, and all three have completely cleaned the algae from the plants and glass. For now I'll leave everything as is, and just keep observing his behavior.

The loss of color was after lights out, just freaked me out because it happened right after I put the zucchini in the tank. Thought I poisoned them or something! They were back to normal by morning. They actually went completely pale with tonight's water change, and were back to normal 20 minutes later. I guess they really show their stress level quickly.

Within just a couple minutes of putting the otos in the tank, I saw one wink at me, thought I was losing my mind and spending way too much time with my tank! All of the fish love the sand, the glofish have picked up the cory's method of sifting through sand for food and then blowing it out of their gills. Quite a sight watching cory's and glofish trying to dig up the same pellet!

Sounds like they are all fine. It is quite unnerving to see all the fish a pale or white colour for the first time, lol. You feel like they are all dying or something.

I've read in many places that generally if you can keep them alive for the first 4 weeks, they should be fine in your tank. Of course, this doesn't mean that they won't die after the initial 4 weeks, but usually it indicates they will be ok. I lost my first one when I first got them. But I've had my current 3 for quite a while now. I think I have 2 males and 1 female, cause one is quite a bit bigger and very very much rounder!

They also like spinach, but just don't feed that too often, because there is something in spinach (I forget the name) that is toxic if they get it too often. But every once in a while is fine. If you can find an all veggie (or mostly veggie) algae wafer, they may nibble at that too.

Lol, the winking is indeed adorable, and if you look away, you miss it - it's super quick.

__________________
20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981