Did you know fantastic help is an anagram of Planet Catfish? This forum is for those of you with pictures of your catfish who are looking for help identifying them. There are many here to help and a firm ID is the first step towards keeping your catfish in the best conditions.
i have spawned most of the spoted hypans L004 /L073 is the only One I have found that has a lot of eggs.L201 has around 12 to 20 L004 has around 30 to 40 in my experiance.
This is quite interesting
I have 3 fish I have called Hypan Sp variant L410.
They are 2 females and one male
They were a dull silvery grey with almost dark brown lines.
I have separated one female and changed the diet from Tetra Prima to JBL Discus chips.
The fish are now a gold back ground with dark black stripes.
The change is not due to development as they have not changed in size or sexual development.
So diet, region and proximity to breeding fish may make a difference to the colour. Makes it very hard to pinpoint a fish
hullfishman wrote:in the cat e log it shows the L004 as having white spots but my fish have yellow spots
In addition to what Bob says, fish photographed through some depth of tannin coloured water will have yellow or gold spots. Closer to the glass, with more flash or with a massive water change this changes. So, it's not really useful as an ID feature.
hi jools i have had the fish for around a year and the previous owner had them for around a year, as far as i know they are wild caught which is what the previous owner told me and i have no reason to doubt this as he is an honest guy, he thought they where L201 but i have been usure of that the whole time i have had them, they have spawned 3 times for me and each time there was around 30 eggs. why do you say L004 is unlikely to be exported?
kind regards
dave
hullfishman wrote:Why do you say L004 is unlikely to be exported?
It's been illegal for a couple of years. It's not a great basis for ID mind you! Just that if it was imported, say, 5 years ago, then the Brazilian species would seem more likely. It's just an import pattern thing.
I am no expert but I have spawned L201 and never had more than 15 eggs so this is why I was more incline to say L004.
If you have had the fish for over a year and the previous owner has had it of over a year wild caught could be a possibility, this so called "Banned List" has been enforced with more vigour over time.
Put it this way I would love a few of the fry to compare them with my L201 fry.
Regards Bob
Do you find that L004 are stockier looking as adults in both sexes? It's been the way I've looked at them, but I've not bred them and it's well over 10 years since I've kept one.
Jools
My experience with L004 is like you quite some time ago and at the time I was convinced it was a L201, but I now have L 201 and the fish is smaller and as you said less stocky. also the amount of eggs was very different, I do understand that as fish mature they will lay more eggs but the difference was quite large as I said I get around 15 eggs from my groups of L201 and the L 004 gave me around 25 to 30 if I remember right.
Again this leads to my hobby horse of the Hypans all being from about 10 different species but that chestnut is well kicked about
Just on that hobbyhorse, wouldn't the difference in fecundity support (but not define) more species rather than fewer? For me, it's a long jump to lump two fish thousands of miles apart and not in connected river basins into the same species. I'm with you on a few of the Xingu ones mind you!
thanks for the replies guys i have just had an email back from the person who imported them and she told me they came in from columbia if that helps with the id
regards
dave
Hi,
I send pictures of eggs L 201 and L 028. L 201 has more smaller eggs (35 - 45 pieces) such as the L028 (cca. 20 eggs) which is more larger size, and fry these two species are also irregular size, and L028 are twice the bigger size compared with L201.