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I recently bought two L172a, and I'd like to know a little more about them. Anyone have this fish? are they shy or you can see them during daytime? Is omnivorous, right? what size reach? All kind of info will be apreciated, thanks!!

L-172a golden heterodon (spelling). this is a great fish. the reach around 7 inches. love snails. will actually hunt them down an suck them out of the shell. check out there upper teeth. they are used to pull the snail out of the shell by hooking it. they are very shy when first introduced to the tank. after a few weeks they will come out during feeding time, truely awesome colors when they are not stressed. good luck with your fish.

ken walker

how can i sex them?

Hi!

Just check what is written for these 2 Leporacanthicus species, it will also work for your




Cheers
Yann

leporacanthicus heterodon , L-172a (though L-172 is an Ancistrinae sp ?) - doesn't really make sense to me, is listed as reaching 18cm or 7" as Ken mentioned.

I have found them to stay quite slim almost skinny eventhough they eat a lot. Mine really enjoy zuccini and jump on it as soon as it is in the tank - gnawing away for hours. Additionally they greedily eat almost any flake food. I have fed them blood worms , mussels and shrimp but they don't seem to tackle it with the same enthusiasm as the zuccini. They don't seem to hunt the snails down as readily as the leporacanthicus galaxis. I will put snails in the galaxis tank which will get eaten but there are colonies of snails living with both the heterodon and joselimanus.

Mine have not really grown much and as I mentioned they have a skinnier appearance compared to the other leporacanthicus species I keep. I have to admit that many plecos seem to take a while to get going in growth (several months) and suddenly they shoot up IME. My guess is that their system takes a while to get used to new conditions and environment (?).

As far as sexing them - I find the sexing of plecos to be very inexact at best (except for a few which are easily distinguished). For the most part when people refer to sexual differences they are talking about fully mature fish often in spawning mode.
I have had L-007 looking as fat as ever but with heavy odontoidal growth(???). Currently I have a colony of joselimanus that are all looking very fat and could be looked at as females.
Studying the fishes behavior is often helpful with plecos I have found. With the joselimanus there are 2 which have occupied caves and are hanging in there with the tail half out wiggling - I am assuming they are males while the third hangs out in and around the wood, moving to different hidingspots from time to time. I'm assuming this is the female.

They are beautiful fish. I hope this is of some help to you and good luck.

when i am sexing these guys for shippment i look soley at the head structure. there is a devinative differance in the slope and angle of the head. the males have a broader head with a slight slope in it. the females head is a bit more pointy and does not seem to have this slope that i am reffering to.

i am able to see these differances when these guys are around 3 inches or better.

there reason for the 2 L numbers as i understand it, someone imported the L-172 and labeled it as such. while someone else labeled L-172a without concurring, hence 2 L-172 numbers.

here in america there have been a few leporacanthicus sp. spawns. as the information becomes more available i'll post spawning reports.

ken

Ken, your best guess - top male bottom female?(of the two pictures)

Hi,

I have two of these. I'm not sure whether I have a male/female pair though. They both seem to have odontodes, on their cheeks and pectoral fins, and on their head. However, in a hiding spot under the filter, I spotted the two of them 'cuddled' together - staying in pretty close proximity. I have seen them squabble, but nothing too vicious. Despite this, does the tolerance described in my previous sentence act as evidence that they're male/female? Because, from what I have read, they are pretty territorial. They are also about 7 cm and as others said, they're fairly skinny. I'm keeping them in a 22c tank with a fair bit of water movement to accommodate 2 Sewellias. Is this OK for them?

Thanks

Wow you pulled a thread from 2004. The fact that they're huddling together doesn't mean anything. you can sex them when they're better conditioned by their comparable head shapes/sizes.

Yeah, I'm not sure a 5-year old thread is the best place for this, but right now I'm keeping it in here - we can always split the thread at a later stage.

The temperature for these fishes should be in the upper ranges of 20'C - the Cat-eLog says 26-29'C. They come from Rio Xingu, which is a quite warm river.

I think the fish needs to be slightly larger than 7cm to be sexable, but being in good condition would also be necessary.

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Mats