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Yep! Good pictures. No comments from Me!

Graeme wrote:Yep! Good pictures. No comments from Me!

Sorry, but I'm going to have to wade in again with my moderator hat on here and say that the above post was REALLY trivial. Please don't use up valuable bandwidth, "conuries" and disk space with trivial posts!

Thanks,

Jools

Thats a shame. Is this the result of too much inbreeding, or was it only a few fish?

hi tkp! My friend recently imported what they call albino hypostomus here in the philippines. Seems that this strain is really spreding through out asia. But I havnt seen any that has no eye. Yours looks unique, cool and is a collectors item Are there alot of no eyes? Or you just got them by luck???

>>Yours looks unique, cool and is a collectors item<<

I know asians have a different "style" of keeping fish but youa lways have to keep in mind that this is an animal which is extremely deformed and unnatural. Imagine an albino dog with no eyes...as a living thing with rights the term "item" seems inappropriate to me!

well sorry if I offended u.. I am just very much into plecos... I mean ive been in the hobby for 8 years now, and since me and my uncle imports fish here, I've never really been so interested in taking care of loricariids than any other types of fishes, not even asian super red arowanas, and rare south or african cichlids...

This isn't my cup of tea, inbreeding strains of albino pleco's.
But I have to say, the fish looks definitely healthy, except for the wrong color and no eyes.

If there ever is a cave-pleco described, it will look a lot like this one!

If there ever is a cave-pl*co described, it will look a lot like this one!

But there are cave plecos described. Don't look quite like it, though.

Caol_ila wrote:I know asians have a different "style" of keeping fish

Christian,

Of course, I agree that that it's almost as perverse to collect blind albino fish as say blind albino humans as friends. But there are all kinds of Asians and all kinds of Germans, all kinds of plecos even, including blind and albino ones. I see lots of albino fish sold in the US.

Dinyar

@dinyar Imho the difference is that noones trying to breed human albinos with no eyes...the asian aproach i criticized has "enjoyed" us all with no tail flowerhorns, Blood Parrots...i know theres europeans out there that produce zombies...

Siluris, you never stop to surprise me....
Please enlight a bit on the cave-pleco's; because I really didn't expect to them to be in existence.....
I know cave-Ictalurids, a Pim, a Clariid and probably some Asians, but a Pleco? In a cave? no algae in caves.....

(I know, not all pleco's are veggo's, but most do eat algae, at least a bit....)

There are three species of cave <i>Ancistrus</i> described: <i>A. cryptophthalmus</i>, <i>A. formoso</i> and <i>A. galani</i>.
Lee Finley even wrote a series of articles in Catfish Corner (TFH of March-May 2000) on collecting, keeping and breeding <i>A. cryptophthalmus</i> (whose diet in the wild seems to consist primarily of detritus washed into caves BTW).
There are also cave silurids and cave trichomycterids, besides the groups you mentioned.

Hi!

I once saw a documentation about bats and the huge amount of guano they produce. And that theres a number of insects and small animals living on this. SO one can figure if the fish live in caves with bats that theres a (shit)load of detritus in the water. Or doesnt this apply to caveplecos hh?

Well, on reading Lee's article, one gets the impression that bat guano isn't the signifcant source of the detritus, but plant matter washed in from the outside during floods is.

Dear all,
I got this fish only by luck!
one and a half year ago, I saw he was mixed with other 20-30 common plecos in a tank. I found that he had no eyes. I felt very amazed about this because he had no eye, but he could eat and swim normally.so I paid us$2.5 to take him home.
I don't care what your thinking about "asian style" ,"america style", "europe style" or "africa style" to keeping fish. My style is giving all the best to my lovely plecos. There have many different ways to keeping fishs, I love to accept other people's opinion more than criticism other people's

Relax, your strange Pleco looks in prime shape & very healthy to me!
So it's probably having a great time in your tank.

My cousin used to have a very hairy Rhineloricaria lanceolata with an impressive pattern. The fish was in fact SO hairy, he only saw it didn't have eyes anymore, after he kept it for some weeks (in this case the eyes were probably picked out, because once we knew where to look, the empty sockets were easily visible). That hairy blind beastie lived for YEARS in a tank loaded with all kinds of catfish.

@tkp i didnt mean to attack you personally since you seem to care a lot for your fish. I meant to criticize the people who intentionally breed these kind of "monsters". And to me it seems the market in Asia is much bigger for these sort of variants.

It is a surprise to me that this topic does arouse so much "opinion", whether positive or negative. Actually, we have discussed TKP's albino long ago with Hong Kong and Tawanese plecos lovers. Their opinion tends to be positive. However, it does arouse criticisms here, such as "Asian type", "American type", zombie. I do appreciate Silurus
does express his opinion from a broader sense as we do.
It's undeniable that albino does exist in nature due to genetic problem. Someone like them while the others consider them poor.
How about the albino is borne blind?? We do appreciate Silurus does share with us the fact that in nature there are cave dweller. That "may" be the reason of their blindness.
However, shall be study the issue in depth in a positive way, not personal attack as others do?
Whether like this albino is totally a personal choice whether you 're a animal lovers or animal collectors. At least in Hong Kong we don't even see any LFS sell the fish which blind artificially. At least keeping them in our tank in a healthy state by providing good conditions like TKP does is much better than someone keeps plecos with insufficient knowledge so that they are mistreated or even killed (but he may consider them die "in nature" Cruel?)
I trust: See more, know more!

I used the term Asian style cauz i have the impression that breds have more of a fashion style than anything else. I dont say "kill the fish" its a monster. I just absolutely fear that these things will have a market, like blood parrots, flowerhorns with no tails, lillipop discus, balloon corys, veiltail ancistrus, dyed fish etc. Isnt it our duty to not encourage these kinds of breedings? This has allready been commented in numerous threads but why artificially produce fish if the natural stocks are being destroyed and some of them never able to being brought back...a friend of mine breeds red list killis. To me this is an achievement and seing how expensive and time consuming this is its even more adorable.
To me it just seems that in Asia and maybe the US theres a market for fish that dont find costumers in Europe!?
As this is a forum for free opinion i respect that you "like" this fish - i absolutely hate seing it and express this opinion.

off for the weekend
Christian

I personally would have bought it as well. It is a very nice fish. Also I saw another post well going through all the one from way back and saw a big pic with all kinds of royals with a gibby of to right hand side I believe. I was wondering if this was your tank how many plecos do you have in there and how many of each type. I want to do a similiar tank. The pic also had to big angel fish in it.

Regarding A. cryptophthalmus:

http://www.fishbase.org/summary/Species ... m?id=49988

-Klaus

Regarding A. formoso:
http://www.fishbase.org/summary/Species ... m?id=49990

-Klaus

The word Abomination springs to mind

Pectorale

Hi, Im not sure but based from a friends experience, there are alot of the albino offspring that are coming out blind. That is the reason why its quite hard raising albino offsprings.. And maybe this is what they look like when they grow. They are quite healthy, they are just blind