PlanetCatfish.com

Lately on a German aquarium site and on some Japanese pleco sites, there have been mention of an L25 Pseudacanthicus "Sao Felix" and an L24 "Rio Tucurui." Pictures show that both these fishes are redder and more colorful than the normal "L24" and "L25" from Tocantins and Xingu.

Sao Felix and Tucurui are just tributaries of the main rivers, right? Are the pseudas collected from these sites indeed redder or is this just a new marketing ploy?

Thanks and more power!

Short answer: yes.

Longer answer:
I haven't got a clue as to where the "most red" variation of L24 or L25 comes from, but I would be very surprised if there wasn't some variation in colouration depending on the location where the fish is captured. This is certainly true for many other fish, so why should these species be any different.

Whether you call this a ploy, clever marketing or something else is of course up to each individual. It's certainly common in the fish-keeping industry to charge more for rarer/prettier fish, and I don't really see anything wrong with charging more money for something that is harder to find... It works this way in many other industries too...

[Of course, someone could have just twisted the red-button in Photoshop to make the picture a bit redder, in which case it's FRAUD, something I certainly do NOT agree with...]

--
Mats

Thanks MatsP.

You're right, the more beautiful the fish the higher the price it fetches. Plecos I notice are also prone to trends, especially here in Asia. For instance, L114s were common here a few years ago but lately they have been replaced by the LDA07/L600, which people may find to be more attractice. Now you can't find L114s anymore in the market.

So Rio Tucurui L-24 is much more colorful than other L-24s?