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here are a couple of pictures of my zebra otos. The first is of my two zebra otos hanging out on driftwood that is angled to recieve water flow from the filter outtake to create a nice current for them.




the second picture is a closeup of a zebra oto hanging on to a dwarf onion plant with its fins!!

Very nice indeed...I've been thinking of getting some Otocinclus and try to breed them. It is possible, although it seems rather coincidential when it happens. I've been breeding various Corydoras and Parotocinclus jumbo for a while...Otociclus are said to be somewhat similar (i.e. cold water changes and so on). But I'll start out with one more inexpensive than the Zebra...Have you bred Oto's?

No I havent bred otos before, although like you said it does seem that otos breed kind of coincidentally in aquariums, at least according to some people I know.

Right now, I am trying to get more zebra otos, they're a beautiful alternative to the common otos, but I cant find more!! anywhere.

zebra oto hanging on to a dwarf onion plant with its fins!!

someone else has noticed that too. perhaps they're giving that mouth a rest!

Typical Oto-behaviour...

I've seen them doing that, even on the glass!
"hanging" with their tips of the ventral spines, and the lowertail-tip as well.

those tips have many tiny spines, and in a tank with a few scratches on the window, Oto's can 'rest' vertically against the window, without using their mouth!

They often rest on plants this way.

If you're going to breed otos I'd suggest starting with the small species (vittatus, macrospilus, mariae, etc). Those are the only otos for which there are any reliable breeding reports (known to me). Although all I've seen have been accidental breedings so it's hard to say what triggered it.
O. flexilis is often quoted as being easy to breed, but that's due to confusion with species of Parotocinclus; I'm not convinced it's ever been bred in captivity.

I thought that sucker mouths didnt actually suck onto the glass or other surfaces, but instead held themselves in place with their swimbladders.

Otherwise how would they breath without letting go?

Just a thought!

I _think_ almost all loricariidae (if not every single one) are fish without swimbladders. If you look at their swimming pattern in open water - it's more like the glide-path of an aeroplane than the straight-line of a swim-bladdered fish.

And yes, they do definitely SUCK onto glass and other surfaces. The whole point of a sucker-shaped mouth is to be able to hold onto a surface and not have to spend much energy doing that. They can breathe without using releasing the suction.

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Mats

My mistake