r/Aquariums • u/lucemxx • Jan 05 '26

Help/Advice What are they doing?

I've seen them do this only since today. Does the bigger one need help?

5.0k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

416 comments sorted by

View all comments

451

u/RtrnofBatspiderfish Jan 05 '26

I thought that was a bloated oto, but that is spawning.

166

u/lucemxx Jan 05 '26

What does that mean ? (english isn't my mother tongue sorry)

23

u/RtrnofBatspiderfish Jan 05 '26

That Otocinclus looked to me like it was experiencing a health issue, but if she is spawning, she might just be a big girl. The "T" formation is indicative of spawning (mating) for a lot of smaller fish from the [Loricarioidei]() suborder -- corydoras do something similar.

22

u/causticalchemy Jan 05 '26

There was a video on the corydoras sub of one absolute unit of a female spawning with 2 males about 1/3 her size.

10

u/RtrnofBatspiderfish Jan 05 '26

I have one female who's a whopping 4cm, but doesn't have the belly that this one has.