Panaqolus Tankei? Size?

[MoonstruckRainbows]

Morning all,
I got these 4 beauties from a friend about 6 months ago as P. Tankei L398s (I know there are a few similar marked species).
I'm only wondering now if they actually are Tankei as they don't seem to have grown at all - the P. maccus they were sharing a tank with have grown on and matured, and provided an easy size reference for the slightly larger Tankei's lack of growth.
Measured last night all are 7-8cm as pictured, and have been this size since I got them. But info on here says these reach 12cm adult size?
Any insight what's going on here, if they are in fact Tankei? Is this a very slow growing species?
Any help much appreciated, thank you

[bekateen]

Hi @MoonstruckRainbows,


I haven't kept

Panaqolus tankei

, but your fish do look like P. tankei. I've kept several other species of Panaqolus (

Panaqolus albivermis

,

Panaqolus albomaculatus

,

Panaqolus sp(L397)

,

Panaqolus claustellifer

, and one of the clown pleco species (either P. maccus or L448). No, it's not my impression that any of the species I've kept are slow growing (at least to reach adulthood and spawning size), but the largest size attainable does take a while to get to. Even

Panaqolus maccus

(L104) can get to almost 9 cm SL and Panaqolus aff. maccus (

L448

) can get over 11 cm, but mine never exceeded 8cm in all the years I kept them, even while they were breeding constantly. (I mention both species. I had only one of these two, but I'm not sure which I had).

Cheers, Eric

[MoonstruckRainbows]

Hi @MoonstruckRainbows,


I haven't kept

Panaqolus tankei

, but your fish do look like P. tankei. I've kept several other species of Panaqolus (

Panaqolus albivermis

,

Panaqolus albomaculatus

,

Panaqolus sp(L397)

,

Panaqolus claustellifer

, and one of the clown pleco species (either P. maccus or L448). No, it's not my impression that any of the species I've kept are slow growing (at least to reach adulthood and spawning size), but the largest size attainable does take a while to get to. Even

Panaqolus maccus

(L104) can get to almost 9 cm SL and Panaqolus aff. maccus (

L448

) can get over 11 cm, but mine never exceeded 8cm in all the years I kept them, even while they were breeding constantly. (I mention both species. I had only one of these two, but I'm not sure which I had).

Cheers, Eric

Thank you very much for your response. Maybe they've just sort of slowed at this size and started focusing towards breeding then, as two do seem to be getting a little plumper than the others and I've seen the slimmer 2 occupying caves.