PlanetCatfish.com

Hi all
Please can someone help. My LFS has just received a shipment of p. apithanos. I've been searching for these for ages and I was lucky enough to see the note on the tank before they arrived in the shop and was able to reserve 2 of the 3 (given the price of them, this was all I could afford this month!)for the weekend, when they will go on sale. However, I need to make sure that they have (hopefully) got a male and female for me to pick. I've had various whiptails and currently have rineloria, farlowella & lamontichthys, as well as ancistrus and hemiancistrus, so I'm familiar with using head-shape, body shape, lip-shape and genital shape to try to sex catfish. I've also read as widely as I can on these fish (including everything on planetcatfish re. any pseudohemiodon)and I appreciate that people seem to use all of these methods to sex chameleons, but what I am looking for is someone who owns these or a very similar species and can give me at least one definitive sign that I might see in these 4" fish. I went back in today and managed to get a couple of pics of them in stress colours. The littlest one was hiding, but of the remaining two, one had white whiskers, one didn't, although they are equivalent size. So is that a sign? Having looked at all the pictures of pseudohemiodon online, there does seem to be an obvious difference in some heads, where some have straight lines to the nose, whereas others curve in slightly, giving a slightly bulbous end to it. Can anyone please please help me out, as I need to be able to go and sex these accurately on Saturday at the very latest!

It's tricky when they are not in breeding condition. Did you read this article?

The safest thing to do would be to try to get hold of the cash to buy all three. Shops can often do a discount if you offer to buy all their stock at once.

Thanks, racoll. Yep, read that article about a million times and read everything I have found on your success with the marbled chameleons! I don't know if you can see, but the first pic shows a hairy lower lip and a fairly bulbous head-shape. The second pic doesn't show it, but by sticking my head over the tank at a funny angle I could see that that one had no lip whiskers sticking out and I am fairly sure that the body shape and head shape is wider. They are actually nearer 5" I think (I'm rubbish with distances!). I'm going to get up much closer when I go back in, but if they are the same size then I am hoping that some differences will be in evidence that will give me the nod to take the 2 big ones. They may do me a deal for 3, but if not it'd be good to have a back-up plan.

Males seem to be a lot slimmer in the body, when compared to the width of the head. It's very hard to notice any difference though, if the fish are not in good condition.

Thanks. I have to say, I've bought a fair few wild/imported catfish and these seem in fairly decent condition (well, the two I could see) and at least they're young enough for me to be confident that they will eventually come into breeding condition, given the right conditions. It would be easier if I could look at loads of verified male/female pseudohemiodon and get my eye in, but obviously that's not possible, so am trying to pick up as much information as I can before I have to make a choice. After all, if they're all males or all females then I'd like to know. They're so uncommon and I've wanted a pair for so long that it's a bit of a dream come true, but that makes the pressure worse

OK, so with a lot of reading and looking at all the pictures I could find, I went to the LFS and picked up my pair of pseudohemiodon apithanos. In the end, after everything I have read/seen, it came down to three things - width of body just behind head, width of pelvic girdle and finally the clincher was the vent. There was a 3rd one there, but it was about an inch or more smaller than these two and it was just impossible to spot any real signs on that one.
Just interested in seeing whether any of you might agree with what I thought. Apologies for the very poor pictures, but I rushed it as I wanted to let them get settled in. Can only give you the ventral views at the mo, but I thought there was enough difference to take a chance on them being a pair. What do you think?

p.s. Whiptail B did insist on sticking a fin in front of its vent, but I think you can get the idea.

Anyone? (Prior thread on these: http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =7&t=40813 )

I've merged the threads, meantime however, I can't tell from the photos/specimens provided.

Jools

Shouldn't this be sitting in the pleco department?

Marc van Arc wrote:Shouldn't this be sitting in the pleco department?

Good point, it's moved!

Jools