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 picked up these 3 fellows today at the lfs. Very cheap for 3 each.
The biggest is 7 cm tl the other 2 are 4 cm each. The lfs guy told me theyll loose the white seams, but i think not as they are very nicely developed on the big male. All 3 have them on the dorsal/caudal fins and on the big one they have a yellowish touch. The spots on the fish are much finer than on my common ones.
What also camo to my mind if its not a species, that its some crossbreed.
And now for some blurry photos:
Interests: breeding catfish from all parts of the world and getting them into the hobby. favorite catfish is the stonecat madtom,btw ingo how are my fish
for what it is worth i just picked some of these fish up at a local importer. they came out of brazil i believe, i will check the source. however they look just like this paticular fish, they where labeled white seam ansictrus. so i purchased several. they have not done at all well with me. they seem a bit anxiety ridden. i will do what i can to find out the exact source of import. also i could not find anything in the books or online that was close to them.
Good to hear smb knows them as i havent found pics on the net...
Mine appear very active. They even came out for feeding when i threw in some tubifex and cyclops. Big one a bit shyer than the smaller ones...as ive noticed before on my commons.
i recently picked up somthing similar from my lfs labled 'Gold spot seamed ancistrus'
one died but the other two are fine and have reached 2" but stayed that length for over 4months. i assume they are quick growing and thats about my lot?
the white seam on both dorsal and tail fin on one fish have disapeared but both 'seams' remain on the other fish!
I know this hasnt helped but id be very interested in finding out if its the same one - i'll try ansd get a pic sorted
Very interesting to hear that others have this fish w/o knowing what it is.
They swam in a tank with common bristlenose fry, which i assume came from a private source. So it wondered me that the lfs guy told me they were "the same" which i couldnt believe and still cant. I picked em up cauz im almost convinced that this isnt a "common".
Update: I traded my fish away for a tank and now the new owner complains that i cheated her by giving them "normal" bristlenoses. She tells me her common bristlenoses also have this yellowish seam to the fins and mine arent special...this really wonders me as the fish had absolutely beautiful white seams in my tanks.
Heres some more pics. Btw i counted 7 soft rays in the dorsal fin, so L183 cant be my fish.
Well the first set of pics, the fish look like a common ancistrus, the second set of pics made the fish look like Ancistrus cf hoplogenys. So I am really amazed when you say that they are the same. They really do not look like it.
Strange....
Cheers
Yann
I agree with Yann, the first set of pictures are young common bristlenoses. I also cannot see dorsal white seams on them and Ancistrus hoplogenys have very obvious ones at that size and also don't get that pale IME.
The second set of pictures are harder to ID, but they certainly do not look like the first at all.
On the first set you can see the white band on the middle pic. They were very pale and brownish but became very very dark in my big tank with dimm light.
Im quite confused as you know that my other "common" ancistrus doesnt look a bit like these guys...
I have seen common bristelnose with a white seam on the caudal and dorsal fins when they are young, but they would never have such a dark coloration.
Yours could have because of the relative dark set-up you have so it could explain why they would look like hoplogenys.
But if it is the case,the thing that bother me is the spot size and colour. they are really small spot for a fish that size, and the white colour is rather pure, and normally should look like a bit like "dirty white"....
It could be great if you could post a pic of what they look now in their new owner set-up!
Cheers
Yann
Yeah the spot size made me buy them. They are tiny.
The new owner told me yesterday shed post some pics but hasnt done so far...so i have to wait for her acting...
On the first set you can see the white band on the middle pic. They were very pale and brownish but became very very dark in my big tank with dimm light.
Im quite confused as you know that my other "common" ancistrus doesnt look a bit like these guys...
They change a lot when young. Look at this pic of a young common bristlenose, it looks a lot like your first pictures.
I have some L183 (they look a lot like the ones you had - but I can see the difference)and if I turn on the tank-light in the middle of the night they are very pale - just like your pictures.
The first set of pics was taken immediately after release from the bag...about 5 minutes afterwards. The second set is in tank after about 1 week in there.
I just read that article bei Seidel and he writes that L183=A.dolichopterus and should have 8-10 softrays on the dorsal fin...mine only had 7 if i counted right...
Well I find the genus Ancistrus to be rather a mess, except for 2-3 species easily to distinct... with so many species described how can it be so much L-numbered Ancistrus without a clear ID....
A lot of work ahead for the Ichtyologist to clear that out or for Ingo to try to find the matches....
Cheers
Yann
AHA! Now, this pictures (in the l-welse forum) are (I think) of a very special pleco to me that I have not seen in a very long time I don't think it actually has an l-number. Look at page 731 (top left) of the Burgess atlas - is this the fish??? It would be really nice to see these imported in numbers and find out more about them. Or is this not the fish?
Hi!
Sincerly I would, especially if the person don't like them.
Try breed them as well!
Jool is correct regarding this species was present in the Hobby not so long ago and somehow disappear.
They were rather treated as common Ancistrus.
The albinos population found in the trade look rather similar to this one.... possibly the species involved in the albinos population of our hobby!
Cheers
Yann
I got a pm that i can go pick them up in a trade for a Botia (i had it to remove MTS from my tank - i know i have a bad conscience about that)...i think of the 3 fish its definately 1 male and 1 female...the third one might be a small male...
Btw what does Burgess note on this fish? Can smb please scan the page and mail it to me? Thatd be really nice and apreciated. If i can breed them ill bring you some fry Jools. (When i get them back hopefully)
Somehow i feel stupid to have posted 3 times in a row...but the BoSox won so ill forgot my stupidity at 620 am.
Rusty sent me that Burgess pic and i see thats its very close to my fish. Although mine has smaller spots.
What i found during a search of A. lineolatus was that L43 seems to be a very similar fish to the Colombian fish that FOWLER discribed. Although highly unlikely to be a French Guyana fish i havent found any usefull pics of L43. But the discription in the elog sounds reasonably close or do i misinterpret something here?
By the way i bought a 14 gallon tank and a filter today to make a sole setup for them although i didnt have the money nor space...pretty special "commons".
Hey, came into this topic a little late, but I have some pics that may help...
I have noticed that with common ancistrus, there is a good bit of white on the fins when young, some more than others, and some keep it longer than others. These 2 pics are of my two boys when they were quite young. They are about 1" and 1.5" in these pics.
Now they are 4.5" and 3" (one's a runt) and they have no white left at all.
@ben i think comparing the pics you will notice the differences (spots and seams)
The biggest fish is 7 cm tl (almost 3 inch i think) and has bright white seams.
Just an update and another crappy picture.
They havent done much growing but as it looks right now its definately 2 males. The smallest one seems to not have decided yet! Hope its a female cauz i wont be able to get any more ancistrus like this in the near future!
But the most remarkable thing is that all 3 are keeping the white seams. Biggest fish is around 8 cm developing nice bristles.
Just ignore photo quality and check out the white seams! Present on all 3 fishes.
Im still searching for a pic of A.lineolatus , also id like to see a pic of L43 and L45 from French Guyana (i know its unlikely to be my fish, just curious cauz the description sounds interesting)
