I took a while this January 1. to take a "dive" into the 10,000 liters inner pond to chase the XXL L-Numbers I have... Here you can see a few pictures of this "family activity". Mum on the camera, Daddy on the fishing and Danaël my son on the Stingray Alert.
Acanthicus hystrix, 8 years old
Acanthicus adonis, 8 years old
Last edited by ElTofi on 03 Jan 2019, 10:37, edited 1 time in total.
Thanks Christophe, I see the pics and will work on the soon, can I ask what visually you can see in these two species as adults that quickly allows you to tell which is which species?
Edit of my 1st entry. There was an error, I had put a adonis picture under the hystrix chapter. And put exactly the same picture in the adonis chapter. solved.
for Panaque schaeferi, the only information I have is from youngsters, as they did match quite perfectly the pictures I had as references. Moreover, they were sold as "schaeferi". In my 4 fish group, they are similar, even if 2 of them are clearly smaller (45-50 cm TL, but thinner, due to hierarchy in the tank). As a final "proof", their actual size, after only 8 years.
for Acanthicus adonis, very easy, even though maybe not so obvious on the pictures : you still can see the white dots on the back and on the fins. They are longer, slender, racier, more elegant as hystrix. Kind of an elf.
for Acanthicus hystrix, it's a massive prehistoric war machine : short, massive, with a big high large head, very strong and thick interopercular odontodes. black as midnight. Dorsal fin shorter and less higher than adonis. Much more of a destroyer.
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Acanthicus adonis, watch the dorsal high VS the shorter of hystrix
from the double moving in October-December 2019 (leaking problems and I had to remove my fish in a shop in my area for 3 months), this Acanthicus never really healed from the stress... it got more and more thin... until these last days where I discovered it was way too thin and without any energy. This morning I found it with destroyed fins, and I could take it out of the tank on bare hands (which is never a good idea with Acanthicus)
I decided to kill it, properly, to avoid further complications