Okay I am going to eat my words here and advise people to NOT put otos and goldfish together..... My goldie got a hold of an oto this am and I am praying he survives. The thing got lodged in his mouth and I cannot get it out and in the process I tore the skin under his mouth. You cannot pull one out because all of it fins are actually spine like and tear everything to pieces when you tug. Piglets mouth looked so much smaller than that darn fish so I never in a millien years would have thought he could eat it. And they have always stayed out of his way so I also thought he could not catch one to even eat it. WRONG ON ALL COUNTS. So please put them together at your own risk. I am just waiting now to see if he can digest it or if it will kill him from the inside out.......

Oh my goodness... that's terrible... I'm always amazed when I hear the things that goldfish manage to get stuck in their mouths! I'm praying for you and your poor fishie.

Oh Im so sorry to hear this! I remember that Koko had a similar situation earlier this year and she ended up literally cutting the oto to pieces to get it out. Im cautious of putting any algae eaters at all with my goldfish. Im afraid the algae eaters could be aggressive or that the goldfish may eat them since I have so many different sizes of goldies. I really prefer to clean algae myself—just easier in so many ways!! Anyway Im really hoping your goldie will make it. Try not to worry too much. Sometimes they can come through things you'd never imagine.

The only way the goldfish can actually eat it if the oto is dead or dying... they are too fast for the goldfish. You should NEVER try to pull out a fish from your goldie's mouth, the bones of the fins will damage the mouth. The only way to do it is as Koko did it. I had the same problem with a cory catfish and had to cut it to pieces too... found the exact procedure in www.fishdoc.com