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Anyone can explain why this particular L02 Tiger pleco have turned into this colour?



It really looked like the Parancistrus aurantiacus 'Xanto' man. What happened?

That picture IS a Parancistrus aurantiacus. Are you saying that your Panaque L002 is changing colour to look like a Xanto?

That piece in the picture is 1 of the L02 that I have in my group. It used to be in the normal L02 colour. But today I just saw it in this colour. So I am puzzled what had happened?

Can you get a picture showing the whole fish? Is this what your previously looked like and has now changed.

yes, we would need pics of the whole fish.

I am more inclined to say it is a P. aurantiacus...

There's been a few examples of plecos changing colours. There are a few post on the subject. I remember seeing (or one of the L-numbers that look similar) as well as one of the gold nuggets.

From memory, it's appears the water quality might have been an issue.

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Mats

Guys, apologies for the late reply. Been busy of late.

I have managed to take a better picture of the whole fish. Yes, it is exactly what it looked like before in the link picture posted by Matthew.

Not sure if the colour will remain as it is or not. But this is really interesting to me.

That is a by the looks of things. You are obviously doing well with water conditions, as this colour indicates that it's in "breeding mood", which happens when they are kept in good conditions.

I have a feeling the females don't change colour.

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Mats

But this fish looked exactly like this prior to the colour change.


In fact, there're still some 'tiger' markings on the top of it's dorsal fin. So I'm really puzzled as to it's identity.

So, you are saying it changed body shape as well as body colour, or simply that it was stripey when in the brown colour form?

Your fish is absolutely certainly not - it is a species.

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Mats

I am quite certain it's L02 as I have kept this group of 12 pieces for more than a year. I will try to take a picture of the remaining 'tiger' stripes that have yet to disappear on the dorsal fin.

It may well be that you have a "bycatch". But it's probably not a bycatch of the fishermen that catch the L002, as it comes from the other end of the Amazon river - P. aranaticus is from Rio Ucayaly in Peru, near beginning of the Amazon, and L002 is from Tocantins, which is near where the Amazon flows into the Atlantic. This is more than thousand miles/kilometers apart. It is of course possible that you have one of the L002 "lookalikes" that come from other regions, there are quite a few.

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Mats

Ok guys, more pictures





Any comments?

Now I'm not entirely sure it's either. But from the latest pictures it does look more like Panaque than Parancistrus, but it also looks like the fins have been bitten/eroded somehow. The previous fish in this thread certainly LOOKS like Parancistrus, but if it's the same fish in both pictures, I'm pretty sure it's Panaque. In which case I'd say it's more likely that your water is NOT good than that it is good quality water.

Have you tested your water recently?

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Mats

Yes, it's the same fish. Probably it was taken at an angle, thus giving false impression they are different.

I have just tested the nitrate level, and it's pretty healthy at <5ppm. I have not got a PH test kit now, so will have to wait till tomorrow for me to get 1. Any other stuff I need to test?

Im not sure about the fin, but it's seems like it has been like that since I got them. I suppose you are referring to the pectoral fin. A few of the matured male also have a very short tail that looks like it been bitten, while some have perfect tail shape, nice and round.

I would definitely test for ammonia and nitrite, and double check (with a different test kit) that the nitrate test hasn't "gone off" [this has been known to happen several times].

If you have soft water, then pH may be an issue, but I'd say it's much less of a problem than nitrogenous waste [I've had pH 4.0 in my tank, and the fish were perfectly fine with that, to my surprise - I only discovered when I bought a pH meter and tested it out on my RIO400 tank - at first I thought "Huh, it's broken", but I tested it against several different "known" pH things (vinegar (pH ~ 2.5), tap-water (pH ~7.5), bicarbonate solution (pH ~8.5)), and it all showed the right value for those, so I'm pretty confident that it was really pH 4.0 in my tank]. (This neglect is not something I'm proud of, and I check my pH regularly to ensure it doesn't happen again).
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Mats

Any chance of some pictures before they change their colour? To be a Panaque species it has extremely large eyes.

Janne

Janne wrote:Any chance of some pictures before they change their colour? To be a Panaque species it has extremely large eyes.

Janne

Good point, and it certainly doesn't match L002 - I'm not sure if any of the "L002 lookalikes" have proportionally larger eyes.
Edit: I had a quick look and couldn't spot any with large enough eyes to match this one - so yes, a photo of the fish before it changed colour would help a lot.

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Mats

This thread is shaping up to be a bit of a mystery.

I still the think that the fish in the pictures is a Parancistrus aurantiacus, but im becoming less confident about it. It has the right body shape, from the pictures it seems to have relatively large gill openings. But the stumbling block for me is the adipose fin. There should be a membrane between the dorsal and the adipose, although not obviously apparent in the pictures they are close together so its possible (could you get an in-focus picture of this?). In all/most the pictures Ive seen of Parancistrus the adipose is practically touching the caudal fin or a very small gap, and all your pictures show a fairly large gap.

I can see where Mats is coming from with the Panaque. But for me the pectorals are far too small and stubby and too far away from the ventral fins to be from the P. nigrolineatus complex. Their size match better with the P. maccus complex but in relation to the width/bulk of the body they are seem far too small again. BTW I hope Ive used 'complex' in the right way.

If this is an L002 or similar fish, then it belongs in the Panaque "dentex" group, which covers the small Panaque species.

I'm not convinced that it is a Panaque, but there are relatively few other things it could be, and the body shape looks pretty much like a Panaque.


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Mats

Huge gill slits, especially when seen from below, would cinch this as a Parancistrus.

I'd also be curious to see the fish before the color change. AFAIK, P. aurantiacus doesn't have stripes.

As far as terminology, the P. maccus "species complex" would indicate all the P. maccus and undescribed fish that look like P. maccus. This is relevant for a lot of wide-ranging "species" such as P. vittata and C. callichthys. To indicate the group of small Panaque, Mats has what you're looking for: P. dentex "species group". Alternatively, you could use the subgenus Panaquolus to indicate the group.

Suckermouth wrote:Huge gill slits, especially when seen from below, would cinch this as a Parancistrus.

I'd also be curious to see the fish before the color change. AFAIK, P. aurantiacus doesn't have stripes.

And neither does any of the other Parancistrus species in the Cat-eLog from what I could see. I'm not sure they change colour either, but possibly. Janne had a post some time ago on Facebook showing "golden" Parancistrus, but I'm not sure where they came from.

As far as terminology, the P. maccus "species complex" would indicate all the P. maccus and undescribed fish that look like P. maccus. This is relevant for a lot of wide-ranging "species" such as P. vittata and C. callichthys. To indicate the group of small Panaque, Mats has what you're looking for: P. dentex "species group". Alternatively, you could use the subgenus Panaquolus to indicate the group.

Thanks for clarifying that. Is the concept of subgenus generally accepted - I know some paper tried to introduce a Panoqulus genus in the past, but it has been accepted generally.

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Mats

Armbruster sinks the Panaqolus into Panaque in 2004. The use of subgenera for the Panaque species is not widespread in the literature (Armbruster himself is the only person who uses it), but then again there haven't been many papers on Panaque since then. Panaqolus is not used in the description of P. bathyphilus, the only species of the P. dentex group to be described since 2004.

Mats wrote:Janne had a post some time ago on Facebook showing "golden" Parancistrus, but I'm not sure where they came from.

L002 Panaque sp. and Parancistrus auranthiacus comes from the same river system, Rio Tocantins, the yellow form of P. auranthiacus is collected a couple of miles (european) upstreams than L002 Panaque sp. so both species can probably be find together. I don't think this is a Panaque species, I agree with Milton that it looks more like a Parancistrus.

Janne

My mistake, the list of rivers in the Cat-eLog includes Ucayali, which I suspect is a mistake (but I'm sure it's listed that way SOMEWHERE - I'm sure someone here didn't just make it up).

Edit: Apparently, the TYPE LOCATION is Rio Ucayaly, Peru.

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Mats

Mats wrote:Apparently, the TYPE LOCATION is Rio Ucayaly, Peru.

I know, there are 2 answers on that, either is the type location completely wrong or the Parancistrus auranthiacus that is known as this species in the trade/hobby is another species and should be labelled Parancistrus sp. because these can absolutely not be the same species... in my view.

Janne

I'd agree with that.

Either way, we need ventral photos of the fish, and we can PROBABLY give a good idea of the ID.

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Mats

A picture of the teeth would clear this up although for my tuppence worth it looks like a except in the first two pictures. It's a toughie!

Jools

The 'tiger' stripe still remaining on the dorsal.

The vent.

Teeth are Panaque, so that should settle that debate [I hope!].

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Mats