Help needed! I have 2 otocinclus catfish in a 10 gallon tank as pictured. They started exhibiting a behavior of darting to the surface to gulp air. Online I found it just points to low O2 levels however I use bubbler to agitate the surface and help those levels and i believe my tank is pretty well planted.
I could use the help in figuring out best ways to solve this as I don’t want the fish to be stresse. Any help is appreciated.
NOTE: I know people are gonna respond and say that I need more then 2 otos as they are a schooling fish and I understand that. It is still the plan I wanted to check if I could handle the bio load before throwing more then 2 in here and making things worse. However at the same time if O2 is scarce I need to fix that before adding any more.
Posted by OverCalligrapher7082
2 Comments
how old is that tank…. it looks way too clean to keep ottos
Get a wave maker. I think you are on the right track with the o2 thing although you don’t provide any information about ammonia which also could cause this.
Bubblers are trash at oxygenating water. You want surface agitation. I like to use a wavemaker pointed up making waves along the surface. Breaking surface tension results in oxygenation.
What is the filtration situation here?
I see a clear tube front left with no prefilter or cap to keep fish getting sucked up which doesn’t matter because that doesn’t seem to lead to anything.
Then a large tube in the back that maybe is producing the bubbles but with no diffusion?
Maybe a basic internal pump with a prefilter?
I’m baffled by this set up.
Yea don’t get more fish.