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In this video you'll see my male bn and a second pleco that I purchased today as a female bristlenose, sparing. I sure this is not bn but, if not what is it? male/female? I'm terrible at ids, so I won't even guess. Is the behavior a territorial dispute?
http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y257/S ... yMovie.mp4

Looks like two male Ancistrus (probably different species) fighting.
-Shane

Thank you Shane. Any Idea on what species it could be? It only has one or two bristles on the nose, none on the snout. I'll try to get some still pics of it.

Ancistrus are quite difficult to ID. Would be a bit less difficult if the photo was from the side (and a still photo rather than a video).

The behaviour is typical for males fighting tho'.

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Mats

Those are the best I could get. The batteries in my digital camera kept dieing so I had to use the sony bloggie. Thank you Matsp. Ive read Shane's article Ancistrus 101, Part 1 and 2. I'm stuffing as much into this little brain as I can, so thank you for your help.
I'm going to hazard a guess lda016.

In this video you'll see my male bn and a second pleco that I purchased today as a female bristlenose, sparing

its not uncommon to see males and females having a go at each other, though

years ago I had a very good breeding pair of the Common Brown Bristlenose and they kept me in fry up to my ears.

but between spawnings the male would bother the female (who was as big as him) and she wouldn't have none of that; they could spend hours locked together with their operculum hooks and do the shove.

on occasion they even did a bit of damage to each other.
but they were a great breeding pair nevertheless

ancistrus can be grumpy fish
;)

I don't know what your fish is, but (true) is quite rare. There are in "calico" colours being sold as LDA016.

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Mats

one of the thin gs in which LDA016 differ from Calico BN's is the way the pattern is arranged:

LDA016 has a symmetrical pattern, this is easy to see if you put them in a white bucket and view from above

Calico fish, like OB (orange blotched) fish, are almost always randomly patterned and the arrangements of the colors is asymmetrical when viewed from the top

Thank you for the info. Does anyone know if LDA016 comes from Colombia? The reason I ask is the person I bought this one from called the importer and confirmed that it is wild caught and from Colombia, region unknown. I have found this list http://lntreasures.com/colombiaff.html and I don't see LDA016 listed.

Are you sure it's not .

I have just updated the LDA016's location (didn't realize it wasn't there...) - it is apparently exported from Brazil. But it's not a very distinctive species, and may well be confused with others...

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Mats

You may be correct, it could well be A. Triradiatus. Especially as I also purchased 2 males from the same individual, and these two now that they have normal coloration and are not stressed, look like the male in the pics for the above mentioned species. I am only hesitant to say for certain because the one in the pictures (posted above) has no spots at all except for the fins and really no pattern to speak of on the body. The males have the same coloration, pattern, and branching of the tentacles as described by the species page for A. Triradiatus.

We have 147 entries in the Cat-eLog for Ancistrus species [1]. There are quite likely another 150 species, or more, out in the rivers of South America. This makes pinning a fish down to a species quite hard...

[1] Technically, there are just barely half of them that are actually scientifically described, and it is possible that some of what we call a species isn't really a species once the scientists have looked at it...

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Mats

Pretty sure that it is A. Triradiatus. Figured I'd post this image of one of two males that was purchased from the same group.Here are more pics of the female. Just for whomever my Google this topic up.

Just to be sure should I move these fish to their own tank to avoid any cross breeding that may occur with the common browns and the piebald? I think I should, just wanting confirmation. Also will a 20g long be sufficient? It would just be the three (2m/1f)A. triradiatus about 4 inches in length with a diy floss/sponge filter powered by a power head rated at 96gph, 1 inch or so of sand substrate, some drift wood, 2 caves and lots of plants to help with nitrates.

okay, I did a lot of reading and found the answers to the questions in my last reply.
The 20gal long should be ok and the filter may suffice but I'll end up buying one just to be sure, and yes it would be a bad thing to allow these to co-mingle.
When looking at them head on do they have a reddish sheen? I had noticed it before but only on the forward most spines of the dorsal and tail fin, but now it appears all but the head looks this way. I also have noticed that the commons and piebald have a sliver sheen, so I don't think it is the lighting as they are still in the same tank at the moment. Any ideas on what causes this?

is that just the way the light is sheening of her or is it just me when it looks like a bacterial infection around the mouth.

no, its not an infection. Just the way it looks.

After hours of studying pictures I've concluded that these specimens are , not Ancistrus triradiatus as previously though. Not sure if this matters but I figured I'd put it out there.

After hours of studying pictures I've concluded that these specimens are Ancistrus sp`COLOMBIA` , not Ancistrus triradiatus as previously though. Not sure if this matters but I figured I'd put it out there.

For the interest of others can you explain how you came to this conclusion?

You may want to follow this thread as well http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 88#p245427

Birger

Yes, I may have made matters less clear by moving Shane's post out of here.

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Mats