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cheers

common, ancistrus cirrous (sorry if I spelt that wrong)

Is what I think was meant

A few more pics of the same male



Does this help at all with the ID?

Birger wrote:

Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus

Is what I think was meant

This is 99% most likely the fish in question - that is unless is was more expensive than expected & from a more specialised retailer. Ancistrus are extremely difficult to ID as there are circa 30 species that all look the same but just originate from different rivers. If the retailer can find where the fish came from (which river - although this is unlikely) a more certain ID might be found but is a variable species very commonly available

Hi I bought them off ebay! (of all places to buy a fish!)

Here is a like to the same type that he's selling again...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ANCISTRUS-SP-UNKN ... 45f3d9e0f6

It must be near impossible to ID these fish as there are so many different varieties so hats off to all of you that try!!

great guy to buy fish off i get all my dwarf cichlids from ste !

If it's wild and from Colombia, well maybe we can make some guesses. I'm having trouble looking up what other fish that guy sells; this would give a hint as to the distributions of the fish that he sells. Can anyone see what other fish he's selling?

If it's from Colombia, I would expect it to be a unless it was specially priced as "rare".

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Mats

Suckermouth wrote:If it's wild and from Colombia, well maybe we can make some guesses. I'm having trouble looking up what other fish that guy sells; this would give a hint as to the distributions of the fish that he sells. Can anyone see what other fish he's selling?

he sells fish from all over south america mainly dwarf cichlids he specializes in !
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 1447wt_911
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 1525wt_911

Well it was worth a shot. I agree with Mats that A. triradiatus is the most likely candidate, but this is more due to chances rather than ability to actually identify the fish by its appearance.

Suckermouth wrote:but this is more due to chances rather than ability to actually identify the fish by its appearance.

Absolutely, I have no particular key from the images that says "A. triradiatus" - simply that the fish doesn't CONTRADICT an ID of that species, and if it came from Colombia, that's also not a contradiction.

I have a list from an exporter in Colombia, and there are four Ancistrus species on the list, A. triradiatus is the second least expensive [the cheapest is A. brevifilis (sic)] and clearly larger than the A. brevifilis in that there is 60 per bag rather than 100. The two others [although probably not ID correctly] would be NOTICEABLY different in both body shape and spots. I'm not saying there aren't other Ancistrus in Colombia - there are probably two dozen species - but A. triradiatus is commonly exported, and most others aren't even caught for the hobby on a small scale. I think Shane reported seeing tanks FULL of A. triradiatus at exporters in Bogota. So, like when the doctor is confronted with a diagnosis that can result in one common illness and one very rare, unless it's Dr. House, it's usually safe to predict it's the common one.

Without knowing what river it came from, or what region at the very least, we can't really get better than this.

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Mats