ID please of fish at LFS? Are these peppermint plecos?

[bekateen]

ID Please? These fish are being sold at a LFS as "common BN." The fish have the following traits:

• All specimens in the store are small (approximately 50mm SL)
• Body is dark charcoal, almost black, covered with irregular, white spots (irregular and jagged-edged, not round dots).
• The pectoral fins have red bands over the pectoral spines.
• The pectoral fins aren't striped, but there are rows of small spots forming parallel lines across the pectorals, approximately aligning with the reddish bands on the pectoral spines.
• The body has an elongate, almost triangular head.
• All the specimens in the tank (at least six fish) have small (2-3mm) bristles along the dorsal lip margin.
• I don't see any sexual dimorphism IF there are a mix of males and females in the tank.

The LFS owner says these fish are captive bred from Asia, and he says they are normal common BNs. I pointed out the white spots to the LFS owner and he said that these fish were just juveniles, and the spots will disappear in adults. It is not my impression that he knows this from first-hand experience with these particular fishes; I think he's telling me what he expects to occur based on his knowledge of adult real common BNs.

Based on the fine white spots, my first thought was peppermint pleco (L071). But after looking at all the profile pics, possible species IDs I'm considering (In order of closest match, IMHO) are:

• Ancistrus sp`rio_ucayali`
• Ancistrus hoplogenys
• Ancistrus sp(l071)

The nose and bristles look right to me for L071, but the red-striped pectoral spine doesn't look right compared to photos for L071 in the CLOG.

Ancistrus sp(l463)

also matches the description (at least superficially), but since there are no registered owners, it's not likely whatsoever.

Thanks for your judgments. Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

More pictures of the same fish.

P.S., you can see in these photos that the fish look thin.

[bekateen]

Here's a video of the fish in the LFS:

Cheers, Eric

Direct link: Mystery Ancistrus. Can anyone ID this?

[Jools]

Ancistrus sp`rio_ucayali`

?

Jools

[bekateen]

Thanks, Jools.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

I went back to the LFS to confirm the ID by catching some fish out of tank. LFS owner sold me 7. I'll raise them up till I can see them, then thin the group by trading some at a future fish club meeting.

I got pictures of dorsal fin (rows of spots) and underbelly (not significantly spotted). Does this confirm or contradict the ID as sp. Rio Ucayali?

Also, I overestimated the size. They are all ~50mm TL, maybe 40-43mm SL, smaller than what I estimated in the LFS yesterday.

Cheers, Eric

[francoisMtl]

Nice catch! Going to the LFS, getting some "common BN." and going back home with some less commun "Ancistrus sp`rio_ucayali`". Quite often it is the reverse happening.
Congratulations!
Francois

[bekateen]

Thanks Francois.

I confess that I'm still dealing with the issue that this was an impulse buy. I've tried to avoid them in the past (Please help me feel better about exercising judgment in a fish store), but these Ancistrus were just too tempting - I haven't had any BNs for a few months, and these were less that $4USD each, so I couldn't pass them up. I told the LFS owner the correct ID before buying them, but he didn't change the price. That was pretty sweet.

It may be that several of my LFS's use the same suppliers. I say this because I've never seen these Ancistrus in my city, at ANY of three independent LFS's in town, or about six other LFS's in my nearby cities. But less than one hour after buying these, I had to stop at another LFS to pick up some frogs for work, and I discovered they also had a tankful of these 'rio Ucayali'... But they were charging $8USD apiece instead of below $4. So I guess I got lucky by going to the cheaper LFS first (but then again, if I had found them at $8 each, I probably would have passed on them and resisted temptation).

Cheers, Eric

P.S., as to their behavior and preferences, I read somewhere that they like wood. I can already say that wood is the preferred food of my new 'rio Ucayali' - there's lots of wood poop swirling in the tank, and I see them eating wood more than algae wafers, raw sweet potato, and even steamed scallops! I didn't realize these were Panaqolus in disguise! Isn't Halloween over?!?

[bekateen]

They have settled in nicely. After meds for worms (PraziPro) and ectoparasites (ProForm C) and no signs of disease, I've moved them out of QT and in with black schultzei.

Cheers, Eric

Direct link to YouTube: Ancistrus sp. Rio Ucayali feeding