Otto Deaths

[AdAndrews]

NITRATE. this is my theory for the deaths of many otto's.. as you know many people find it hard to keep otto's for any lenght of time, but i have had 2 die on me recently after adding some pottassium nitrate for a plant fert. as i would usually have very low nitrate- 2-3ppm, it seems to much of a coincidence.

anyone agreee or disagree?

 

[tom_os]

i have quite high nitrate, 30ppm and my ottos are fine

although sayin that i have had 1 otto deat. about 3 days after i added them

 

[nitro7]

if you have a look at how the harvest ottos you will see why so many die

 

[tom_os]

hows that?

 

[bagu]

if you have a look at how the harvest ottos you will see why so many die

im intrigued, ill see if there is a youtube vid!

 

[nitro7]

have a look on wikipedia,ottos/they use poison to catch them,they put it in the streams to catch them

 

[saz326]

It's unlikely to be nitrate poisoning unless it suddenly changed (did you pour lots in and fast?)

Nitrate is one of the least harmful things in a tank. Nitrate leves can happily be in the 40 or so mark before any detrimental stuff starts happening. Its nitrIte and ammonia that do all the damage.

It is more likely that the Potassium nitrate itself was either not fully distributed and they got a gill-ful, or the Potassium itself could have gotten free and done the damage.

When you added it - did you pre-dissolve it or add it as a powder?

If you dissolved it did you ensure you poured it into the filter flow so it get diluted down straight away or did you pour it in all in one go away from the filter output?

 

[keenonfish]

Could otto's not also be similar to river loach's in their need for a high oxygen content?

 

[snowflake311]

The reason so many die due to the way they are caught also if not fed enough they starve.