Angelfish and Otto -- Bad Combo

May 25, 2008
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#1
I've had tanks for about six years and am new to posting stuff. But I rely on other people's posts when I have problems and am searching for advice, so I decided to add my two cents. I have nothing against ottos and am sure that lots of people have had no trouble keeping them with angelfish. So, this is primarily by way of passing on my experience to help others make their own judgments (and to help problem-solve if you have the same experience).

Lesson learned the hard way--don't keep ottos with angelfish. Ottos aren't fast enough to get away and they're pretty small, so they seem like a good idea from the perspective of a large angelfish. They are also a really serious choking hazard.

I have had a koi angelfish for two years now. It's about 7 or 8 inches tip to tip and lives as the only angelfish in a 50 gallon tank with some danios, bigger tetras, a pleco, some loaches, and a few SAEs. I also had a few Otto/Oto catfish (otocinclus) in there with him for this whole time and never had a problem with any of these combinations. I'm posting this on the beginner page because I had never heard of problems mixing ottos with angelfish, but now have found that my horrible experience over the past few days has been shared by many other angelfish owners -- enough to warrant caution on the part of others considering this combo.

Two days ago my angelfish tried to eat one of the ottos. I noticed the tail of the otto sticking out of the angelfish's mouth just a little and thought that it was no big deal, that he had just tried to eat a fish that was a little too big for him and that he'd cough it out on his own. I went to bed, and found that the angelfish was sitting very still at the top of the tank, upright still, and hadn't made any progress on the otto. I googled the problem and realized what the problem was: the otto, like other catfish, has really hard fins (and maybe spine-like protrusions?) that get caught in the throat of fish who try to eat them. I found other posts from people who said their angelfish had the same problem with very small cory catfish.

There are conflicting suggestions about what to do in this situation. The overwhelming suggestion is to try to remove the otto from the throat if it looks like the angelfish is not going to fix the problem on its own -- especially if it hasn't been able to eat, if it's floating sideways or upside-down. In these cases the opinion seems to be that trying to remove the fish is a risk that it's worth taking to save the life of the angelfish.

The problem is that removing the otto is very difficult because it's fins open up and get stuck in such a way that it can really cut up the angelfish's throat to pull it out forcefully.

So, what I did: First of all, I didn't wait until my angelfish was floating around. I waited about two days after seeing the tail initially, and then decided that the angelfish was suffering too much to let it go on like that. It was definitely too agitated to let me hold it in my hand in the tank and open its mouth (some people can do that once the angelfish has really given up I guess). So, I used a large net, scooped him out and laid him on a soaking wet towel right next to the tank. I then lightly covered him with the corner of the wet towel. I don't know if you need to cover him or not. Throughout the entire procedure he was out of the water for a total of about one and a half minutes. I used tweezers that were flat with one angled corner to get a wider grip on the otto. This will depend on how big the fish is. I did not try to cut the otto's fins, as recommended by others, because it was way to far into his throat for me to get in there without doing some kind of more involved "surgery". I basically put the tweezers in the angelfish's mouth (as close to the head of the otto as I could get) and carefully wiggled it back and forth very gently and twisted it a little as I pulled carefully. This should obviously be done delicately. Sometimes I pushed it a tiny bit further in to try to get the fins to close up before pulling a little more. I would not advise just pulling really hard because it definitely seems like you could rip off the angelfish's head or seriously damage the gills if you're not very gentle. One and a half minutes seemed like a really long time, but I didn't want to yank on it, so I just very slowly made little bits of progress. I would certainly not keep the angelfish out of the water for much longer, so if it doesn't feel like it's working then I'd put him back in the tank and let him rest before trying again. I kept him in a breeding net so the other fish would leave him alone. When I finally got the otto out I could see that the flesh had decomposed around the head, but that the fins were sharply pointed out and not flexible. The otto was a little longer than an inch.

A couple other things to keep in mind-- if the angelfish doesn't look like it's in immediate danger you might try to be patient to see if the otto decomposes in its mouth. I would also not suggest cutting the otto in half in its mouth because you might have a problem getting the other half out if it stays stuck and is now harder to grab because it doesn't have a tail. You might also try pushing it in a little as a part of the pulling out process, to get whatever part of the skeleton is stuck to the throat to come loose.

It looks like my angelfish is going to be okay now.

Gross stuff. Totally traumatic for me and for the poor angelfish (and otto). I strongly advise not keeping these fish together.

search phrases: otto stuck in angelfish throat or mouth, fish stuck in fish throat, angelfish choking
 

Orion

Ultimate Fish
Moderator
Feb 10, 2003
5,803
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Kentucky
www.thefishcave.net
#2
Thanks for sharing your experiences. This problem isn't related just to angelfish, but really to any fish that is large enough to get the otto (or other similar related catfish) into their mouths, but small enough not to be able to swallow it OK. I lost a Heros effaciatus several months ago due to the same thing.
 

MikeS

Large Fish
Oct 5, 2006
328
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Nor Cal
#4
I had a red iranian rainbow do the same thing. I left it alone (couldn't catch him) and 2 days later the oto was gone. Have no clue. But the same rainbow did it again with a ghost shrimp. Dumb fish.
 

Dec 20, 2007
485
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North Lousiana
#5
ooh ow. Bad experience for both fish. I've considered angels for my tank but i'd been told they would eat neons. Figure if they could eat neons they could eat otos too. Since I have both I decided against angels. Good thing. Wouldn't want to find myself in that scenerio.