Otos with green stomachs

[frankenfish]

i assume this is a good thing? it means they're eating right?

 

[aakaakaak]

A natural occurrence from what I've heard. I could be mistaken though. I only just today got a couple.

 

[Kiara1125]

I think aak, is right. I saw it happen to my Oto for a little while when I got my first Algae Bloom with him in the tank.

 

[lauraf]

Otos are lightly pigmented on their underbelies, so internal stuff shows through more. Green is a good thing - means their bellies are full of algae!

 

[pateceramics]

My friend's daughter turned orange when she was a baby, because one of the first veggies she liked was baby-food carrots. She ate a LOT of carrots. A green oto is a happy oto?

 

[aakaakaak]

The orange may have been a high concentration of copper, unless it was food coloring on the skin.

 

[lauraf]

The same thing happened to a friend of mine - her two year old would only eat tomato sauced pasta and carrots for dinner for a few months (no judgement here ). The child looked like she had shared Jessica Simpson's self-tanner.

 

[pateceramics]

It's actually the beta-carotene from what I understand. You have to eat a LOT of them. Feel like I heard that everyone turned orange in the bio-dome experiment, because sweet potatoes were the one crop that really did well for them.

 

[IThinkTherefore]

ahahahaha. Lol at orange babies! xD

 

[frankenfish]

oompa loompa babies*SUPERSMIL

 

[frankenfish]

alright the algae is mostly gone in the tank. should i start feeding them algae wafers or veggies or what?

 

[IThinkTherefore]

They may eat blanched zucchini or spinach, or algae rounds.

It's pretty hit or miss with ottos though, they're often extremely picky.

Your best bet would be to grow some algae in a sunny window, they'd love that

 

[pateceramics]

Been trying mine on zucchini. So far the snails are eating it happily, but no luck with the otos. Plenty of algae in my tank, though!

 

[OrangeCones]

I supplement my otos with veggies, but I've found that if algae is available, they will ignore the veggies for the most part. One of my species has never been seen eating veggies at all. The one species that will take veggies with algae available is the Cocama, which since they are the hardest to come by, I'm glad they are not so picky!

 

[frankenfish]

i've had suprising success with omega one veggie rounds. i put a few in the corners of the tank. i checked back an hour or so later and they were chomping away on them. the corys and snails love em too