Help on Otto

[Rexxer]

I have a IQ5 low tech tank with dragon rocks and mini fissiden. 4 fire reds, 2 yellows, 2 sunkist, 2 ramhorn snails, 2 boraras and a otto.
This is my 2nd otto since 3 weeks, or should i say was.(It died yesterday) Can i know what may be the reason for their death?
WC once a week(1 tub) and water top up every other day(2 tubs).
Will like to know the cause before i kill another 1.
Thanks

[felix_fx2]

Hello rexxer,

How was the health of the poor chaps when you bought them and the days before they passed on.

Also the tank was been setup for how long will help.

[Rexxer]

They were happily swimming around when I put them in. I always choose those fish that are active in the shops.
Got the tank pre setup from shop. Shop owner say it has been cycle for long time. And I have it for coming a month.

[felix_fx2]

Did they appear to reject food and stay put at one corner?
Sometimes just active alone is not really meaning it is healthy and not stressed out from transportation.

I've seen really active ones with flat bellies (malnutrition)..
1 wild guess, did you let it swim out after a while from the bag, after you left the bag to be the same temperature of the tank?

OT: Not many LFS cycle the tank fully for presetup tanks. 4-8 weeks of wasting space. But this is a personal opinion.

[Rexxer]

I did left the bag to match the temperature before I let them out. When they came out, they were busy sucking around.

[felix_fx2]

Any odd signs? Example suddenly refusing to eat algae and becoming unhealthy look?

The other livestock suffer any deaths? You may want to check the filter media and sponge & maybe lightly rinse it in some existing tank water. If your lucky it could be foreign object added by customers before you bought them.

P.s: some of the bros will reset and setup the tank from start again when they don't know what's killing the live stock. But thats quite desperate.

[Rexxer]

The other livestock are ok, even the snails got babies. Only the ottos got problem.

[stormhawk]

In this situation, the Oto might have died from malnutrition. While the Otocinclus is an omnivorous catfish, it still needs some form of algae in the diet. Given that this tank is primarily a shrimp tank which also contains snails, it is not necessary to have the Otocinclus around. The shrimps and snails will be competing for the Oto for the algae.