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I got these fish from the LFS and they were labled "Farlowella algae eater". I think one is acus but the other I have no idea. Any comments would be great, thanks.

Poor pic of 2 together: (top fish will be fish #1)


Fish #1: (acus?)


Fish #2:
This fish is much darker than the other and as you can see in the pic it has obvious rings on the tail.

They first one I'd call F. vittata as it has two rows of scutes on the belly. F. acus is not available in the trade at all.
To confirm: If you can measure [on a photo is easier] the snout-length should be more than 1.9 times the inter-orbital width. (Snout-length is from the tip of the nose to the "front" part of the mouth) [So, you need a shot from above].

The second fish is not the same species, as it has three belly scutes. The species, I _think_ is either or (the order should not be seen as a sign of "more likely" - just the order I wrote them down).

Farlowella are NOT easy to ID, so I'm by far not certain.

--
Mats

Thanks Mats
The second fish I thought mariaelenae also but the center row of scutes in the cat-eLog pic looked to be diamond shaped (not sure if this varies). I know almost nothing about the farlowella so I'm going with your suggestions. I'll also try to get a few above shots of both just to help with the positive i.d.'s

It doesn't matter to me other than knowing what I have so no worries.

There is an article by Shane Linder of F acus that you may find interesting.
See: CotM for July 2008.

[Mod edit: Add link to COTM article --Mats]

Top fish = F. vittata
Bottom = F. mariaelenae

Colombia is by far and away the largest supplier of Farlowella for the trade and about 80% of these are F. vittata with a fair number of F. mariaelenae mixed in as bycatch (F. mariaelenae looks almost the exact same from the top, but is easily distinguished by its three rows of belly scutes vs two in F. vitatta). In fact there is a very good chance that anyone keeping a fair sized group of Farlowella actually has both spp mixed together, as is your case above.

-Shane

Is this guy also F. vittata?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kozadinos/ ... hotostream

Thanks,

Anthony

Can't say without seeing a shot of the belly area.

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Mats

A camera-phone shot of the belly:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kozadinos/ ... otostream/

...I was curious if this somewhat asymmetric pattern is typical or not.

I hope this fish's health is in order. I was somewhat shocked how docile it is, but the LFS said this was typical. I was able to gently move him in the tank (cleaning debris from the filter intake, which he was near but not attached to) and he slowly scuttled into my hand and attached himself to my finger. I was able to transfer the fish onto a piece of squash easy as pie. Very unusual in my limited experience, or a very sick fish?

Two rows means . I'm not going to go through all the steps to get there, because I'm sure what Shane wrote above about which Farlowella are in the trade is correct.

--
Mats

I was curious if this somewhat asymmetric pattern is typical or not.

Exact size, shape, etc of the belly scutes will vary greatly between individuals. In fact, after having collected thousands of Farlowella in Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil I am fairly confident that they are as unique as a human fingerprint. With a little observations you should easily be able to distinguish all your Farlowella individually by their scute pattern. The fish above looks healthy and normal to me.

-Shane

Thanks, Shane. I really love the species, so I'm excited to have one finally.