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I just bought 4 ancistrus temminckii "albino". Apart from the colour difference that is visible, with the ancistrus temminckii being pale and almost white looking (like its seen a ghost ); what is the difference between the two fish?

They certainly will not be .

They will be another selectively bred form of , like one of these?





Post a photo. Surely someone will have seen these before.

Racoll - the 2nd pic you posted of an albino/"white" fish has normal eyes - would that be L144 or can white have normal eyes?

yes. just like those pics. I have the normal albinos that have this lovely rich colour to them, and the new ones (3f, 1m) are really pale. Very pretty fish, but very pale in comparison.





normal -

new one -

Whether they are orange or pink is probably largely dependant on their food. Mine are very orange in my RIO400 tank, where I feed a lot of Tetra Prima (which is RED). In my fishroom tank, they tend to be a bit more pink/white, and I feed mainly algae wafers and vegetables in that tank.

The fish are common bristlenoses for sure.

is not being exported, but it does look similar to our common bristlenose, so several books and many shops tend to call the common fish A. temminckii.

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Mats

MatsP wrote:

Ancistrus temminckii

is not being exported, but it does look similar to our common bristlenose, so several books and many shops tend to call the common fish A. temminckii.

--
Mats

Is that because of restrictions on Suriname exports in general?

jimoo wrote:Is that because of restrictions on Suriname exports in general?

I'm not sure, to be honest - I just know that fish from Suriname are not found in the aquarium trade - whether that is because there simply is no infrastructure (exporters, collectors, etc) or if it's because the country's laws and regulations. I know there is no infrastructure to trade in live fishes, but whether that is because it's illegal, I'm not sure.

--
Mats

Richard B wrote:Racoll - the 2nd pic you posted of an albino/"white" fish has normal eyes - would that be L144 or can white Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus have normal eyes?

All the "L144" in the trade are actually another form of . I believe you can get true L144 in Germany though.

I think the difference in colour between phoenix44's albinos are due to, as Mats says, food, or a different mutation of the albino genes.

yeah, I thought they were normal everyday albino bn's. they are so pretty though! Ill feed them up and see if the colour changes, and if it doesn't then I'd be happy to put it down to selective breeding for the whitish colour.

racoll wrote:

Richard B wrote:Racoll - the 2nd pic you posted of an albino/"white" fish has normal eyes - would that be L144 or can white Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus have normal eyes?

All the "L144" in the trade are actually another form of

Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus

. I believe you can get true L144 in Germany though.

I think the difference in colour between phoenix44's albinos are due to, as Mats says, food, or a different mutation of the albino genes.

Interesting L144 are offered for sale over here from private breeders & the supplied photos (of actual fish, not from the interenet) look genuine compared to cat-e-log. Pier also had some 1 inchers last month, again i took them to be genuine. I had debated whether to get some of these L144 some time but i may be more cautious now...

MatsP wrote:

jimoo wrote:Is that because of restrictions on Suriname exports in general?

I'm not sure, to be honest - I just know that fish from Suriname are not found in the aquarium trade - whether that is because there simply is no infrastructure (exporters, collectors, etc) or if it's because the country's laws and regulations. I know there is no infrastructure to trade in live fishes, but whether that is because it's illegal, I'm not sure.

--
Mats

I once asked a fish importer with friends from Surinam (it used to be a Dutch colony once, i'm ashamed to say) who told me nobody there is interested in fishes, or selling them

Surinam has a lot of problems, both relating to its economy and weak government, and I wuld be very surprized if they would start banning fish export. I would expect them to chear the export

Hi Richard,

..that might be a topic worth a short article, actually. Mostly because it pops up from time to time (which is not your fault, of course!).

Nevertheless, I managed to find a (very old) reply by myself from some time ago, originally here: http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =5&t=17856

Hi Craig,

this is what I merged for myself from a lot of publications regarding this topic:

At first- what is sold as L144 is (at least here in Germany, don´t know if this holds true for your place) in fact not L144. The "true" L144 is nearly lost for the aquarist. What is sold as L144 is a xanthoristic (is this an english word..?) mutant of Ancistrus sp. "brown" or A. sp.3 as it is called here at PC.
The Albino Bristlenose is an albinotic mutant of Ancistrus sp. "brown" (sorry, I´m too used to that name). [...]

There should be more around, but that´s the most detailed I could find.
Bottomline is: The odds are (very) high that you will not find the true L 144, but only the bred variety of the common bristlenose, which is being offered under that name. Essentially, there are no L 144 around anymore.

Cheers, Sandor