Please help with sexing L174 + new pictures

[Sanplec]

Hello everyone,

Please help me sexing my L174.
I think I've 6 males!

Pleco 1:

I see here a little bit of odontodes on the left side.


I see here also on the left side a bit odontodes, and maybe some 'hair' on the body.

Pleco 2:

Also here I think I see a bit odontodes


A swollen cheek maybe?

Pleco 3:

Also here odontodes on the left side, mayb a little bit of 'hair' nearby the dorsal fin?

Pleco 4:

Odontodes and hair...


Odontodes and hair, maybe a swollen cheek?

Pleco 5:
Prepare, this is a really fat one:

Hair and odontodes..


Odontodes on the right side...

Pleco 6:



I really don't have a clue,maybe a little bit odontodes on the last picture?

Sorry about the pictures, I tried y best to zoom them in.
I hope you can help me, I just hope to have at least one female

[MatsP]

It would help a lot to have the fish photographed from above on a light coloure background. This makes the shape of the fish and any "hairs" on the body show up nicely.

With these photos, it's quite hard to tell, I'd say.

--
Mats

[Sanplec]

No problem, I'll do my best. I'll post them hopefully this evening.

[Sanplec]

Here are the new pictures:

Pleco 1:








Pleco 2:






Pleco 3:




Pleco 4:




Pleco 5:




Pleco 6:
(yeah I know it's a fat guy

[jac]

Hi Sandy!
Absolutely beautiful fish you've tot there!! Makes me proud to own a group of juvi's myself. Can't wait to see them mature.
I'll be watching this tread to learn about the male female ratio.

[MatsP]

I think Jac is right: They aren't quite old enough to sex easily - have you just got them? If so, it may also be that they aren't quite settled in and have lost a bit of their odontodes. The last picture looks like a female to me, but I could be wrong.

--
Mats

[Sanplec]

Well, I've got them two years ago, they were about 5 or 6 cm then.
Now they're about 6 or 7 cm. I thought this is the size they get as adults?
And I thought they only show their odontodes when breedingtime is there, but I only heard that. So I've claened the aquarium and added cold water and more food then I normaly give them. Then I saw a bit better the odontodes, but that was yesterday, I don't know how quick that disapears again. I also heard only the males have these body odentodes. So when I saw this yesterday with every fish I've got, I wanted to know sure so I can get some females, but I guess it's very difficult to sex these monsters

I thought the last one is a male, odontodes on the cheek seems to be longer as the others. Maybe it's just a fatass or this fish is the only sexmature enough?
Did you guys also notice the headshapes of these fish?
Some of them really do look like a male

[MatsP]

They are probably not fully grown - especially if your lengths or total length (including tail fin) rather than "Standard length" that we use in the Cat-eLog - the Cat-eLog says 9cm SL, so about 10-12cm TL.

But fish 2 seems to have quite a bit of "hair" on the back part of the body.

Odontodes are not lost/gained in a day or two - it takes several weeks.

Body shape of the last looks like a gravid female. But I could be wrong - I'm not the best expert at sexing Hypancistrus, and they are certainly not the EASIEST to sex.

--
Mats

[AleGer]

Sanplec, I think it is not an easy task to sex L174. I've got 4 of them too. And 2 of them are definite males, because they had hard growth at the back. Now the growth disappeared. So I agree that they show their "hair" during spawning season.
All of mine are quite fat, so to sex them by body shape is very difficult.
Here is photos of my definite males:




You can see "hair" on the back. These photos were taken half an year before. Now my males aren't so hairy.

I still don't know if my two other fish males or females.
It is an interesting question "How to sex L174" to me too.

[Sanplec]

Hi AleGer,

Thanks for sharing your experience!
So what I've heard was true, thats interesting to know.
You have quite stingy males indeed
I see on your L174 the headshape is diffrent.
I hoped I could sex on the headshape, but guess not
I'll just let them and see if they breed.
Very much thanks!

[gaballench]

Hello,

I'm not sure at all about the sex for the first five specimens, but, without any other info source at hand, I would conclude the sixth is a gravid female. I don't think it's just a fat guy since loricariids deposit fat under skin (the same way we do, and therefore might look 'fatty'), but also as fat bodies associated to reproductive and digestive systems, and those fatty structures do not develop that much as to make them look fatty. On the other hand, with preserved specimens at hand, you can conclude that everytime you examine a small massive specimen you can find it full of eggs (the same way as your sixth fish). The latter is just my experience with genera from the Ancistrus-clade, so I can't say that Hypancistrus and other genera from Armbruster's Panaque-clade would behave in a similar way. A good try is to note that very territorial species (e.g., those in Ancistrus) do show strong sexual dimorphism in SL, and therefore try to realize whether the genus of interest might be showing such dimorphism; if so, you can use correlation among body condition and SL to try a moderate guess.

I know this might be little informative, but it might prove to be of interest for someone.

Cheers,

Gustavo

[LEO Taiwan]

Here are the new pictures:

according to your new pictures,i think only the NO.6 would be female.

[AleGer]

Regarding your Fish#6:
Yes, it is wide. And I hope it is female.

[Mod edit: Pictures moved to another thread --Mats]

[MatsP]

I would prefer to split the subjects - that way, there is no confusion about "which fish1 do you mean?" and so on.

I will split this off in a minute, so that it's two different threads.

--
Mats

[AleGer]

But I still want to show Sanplec my fat male L174.
Sanplec take a look at my Fish1 (definite male) here



[Mod edit: Add back the picture, rather than a link to another thread --Mats]

[Sanplec]

Thanks everyone!
Aleger's picture of his male does reminds me of my pleco no 6.
I think I can only get to know for sure when they get just as spiney as Aleger's males.

This afternoon I was a bit bored and made a picture with every head of my L174 for comparisation. I added the number of the pleco as in my topic and I added a stripe on the nostrils, to compare noselength. Noselength look the same, but do you notice the noseshapes? Pleco no 2, 4 and 6 seem to have the same shape of the nose. The other pleco's seem to have a bit pointier nose. What do you guys think about this picture?

[Barbie]

It's difficult to say without something to compare for size, but fish #4 has much thicker pectoral rays all the way to the tip than #6. If these fish were mine, I would warm the tank up for a few weeks, feed heavily, and then do some large volume RO water changes for a few days, after redecorating and swapping in and out some caves. I don't know that all Hypancistrus are able to read the books about the way they should look to be which sex. I've had both L46 and L260 that pictures showed MUST be male, yet they laid eggs ;). I do think you have both sexes in this group, after looking at the pictures.

Barbie

[stuby]

Number 6 looks female to me....easist way to sex them is to look at there vent. Do a good sized water change before checking them will help see it better too.

Here's a couple pics from here....
male


female


one of my female


HTH
Chuck