# Hey - can I hitch a ride?



## Jiinx (Apr 5, 2012)

I saw this while I was walking by my tank.

My oto was on one of the amano shrimp's back. It was quite cute and, well, pretty cool! Neither seemed to mind and looked like they were friends 

I apologize for the poor photo quality..took it quickly with my phone.


----------



## Jung (Mar 17, 2009)

do shrimps have a protective slime coat like fish? If they do, it's dangerous for the shrimp because otos are known to attach themselves to other fish and suck off the protective slime coat. This is why discus keepers never keep otos.

My otos try to attach themselves to my corys but luckily they shake them off quickly


----------



## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Shrimp have an exoskeleton, not a slime coat. I'd be amazed if Otos were able to do them any harm. They may be feeding on minute bits of algae or ordinary bio film the shrimp have on their shells. I've also seen both Otos and shrimps feeding on the algae and bio film some snails have had on their shells, but no damage was done and the Otos stopped doing it as soon as the algae was gone. The shrimp seem to like picking at the snails, and I assume it's biofilm they are picking at, but the snails don't seem to mind in the least. They don't shut their doors or even pull in their antennae, not even when the Otos were scraping algae off their shells. 

From some articles I have read on Otos, the behaviour of trying to feed off fish slime seems to be mostly limited to slower, flat bodied fishes like Discus, but there did not seem to be a consensus on whether they actually did damage the larger fish, assuming the larger fish were healthy to start with. It might be an issue with lack of enough proper food for the Otos, but no one seems to be certain. If I had Discus or perhaps Angelfish, I might not keep Otos with them just to be safe, but most other fish and inverts don't seem to be at risk from this Oto behaviour.


----------

