Fat, fighting plecs...could someone help ID?

texasgirl005 · Post by **texasgirl005** » 29 Jun 2006, 15:15

Hi, I was directed over here from oscarfish.com because I had a question about these two plecs in my MIL's tank.
I'm trying to get rid of them and would like to know if they are both commons. I don't know what all the "L345" and everything means that y'all use to identify, sorry.
These are about 8"-9" each and are beginning to fight in their too-small tank.
I'm pretty sure the first one is a common plec, but the second one was spotted and striped so I wanted to get the "for sure" from someone that really knew.
Thanks so much!
Lindsey

Common:

Common???

texasgirl005 · Post by **texasgirl005** » 30 Jun 2006, 02:01

Anyone?

zenyfish · Post by **zenyfish** » 30 Jun 2006, 02:16

It's a bit hard to tell from the pics, but looks common to me. The "striped" part is typical stress coloration.

texasgirl005 · Post by **texasgirl005** » 30 Jun 2006, 02:19

Thank you zenyfish. It probably was stressed as I was hassling them a little to get them into a decent place to take a picture. Thanks!

Yann · Post by **Yann** » 30 Jun 2006, 09:32

Hi!

Yeap Hypostomus species for sure... but what species....quite hard to tell!!

Cheers
Yann

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 30 Jun 2006, 10:20

TXgirl: I'd say it's something similar (or identical) to . There are several different species that are VERY similar unless you start looking REALLY closely (like shape of bones inside the fish, or measuring eye-diameter in comparison to head-length, or something like that - just to give some examples of things that the scientists do to tell whether one fish is the same as another or not).

They were imported in quantity many years ago, but nowadays, the "Common pleco" is almost always a , which are farm-raised in Southeast Asia or Florida.

A good algae-eater, and given sufficient greens, they are long-lived. They also don't grow quite as big as the "new" common.

--
Mats