fish friend was an snail control employee at Aqua Forest Aquarium. we met in august 2025 and he looked at me with his big eyes, smol face and zoomed around super fast. i visited him every week for 6 months until the store finally let me have him. This tank was made to be his perfect retirement home. No matter where he's hiding in the tank, he's always happy to swim up and say "o hi!" whenever i walk by.

recruited specifically so fish friend would have a crew to shoal with. meet lil smol, lil brave, lil shy, and lil dumpy. they're smaller and definitely not as smart or as good at hunting snails as fish friend, but fish friend has been happy to show them the ropes. fish friend has never been alone since.

there are five of them, and they are constantly working. otocinclus are tireless algae grazers — they patrol every leaf, glass panel, and hardscape surface with their little sucker mouths. they feel most secure in groups, which tracks because they're almost always clustered together. one of their most endearing quirks: when resting on a surface, their little pectoral fins lift their bodies up so they appear to hover just above it, like tiny tripod fishers just hanging out. supplement their diet with blanched zucchini when natural algae runs low.

named after aquascaping legend Takashi Amano, who popularized their use in planted tanks in the 1980s. i bought 11, but they're nearly translucent and constantly moving so it's genuinely hard to do a headcount — they could all be there, who's to say. they forage on algae, biofilm, and everyone's leftovers without needing any help. you'll forget they exist and then suddenly spot five of them on one leaf doing an extremely thorough job.