BristleNose ID?

[eklikewhoa, posts: 12]

I got a mammoth female and now just picked up a male for her but was told they are not of the common Bristlenose. If anyone can point me in the right direction in ID'ing them it would be greatly appreciated.

Female is about 6" and male is a little about 5"

Male




Female



Female in front of a 2qt. floating nursery in a 180g tank for size reference

[tomr, posts: 149]

She is fat. she will spawn soon.

[eklikewhoa, posts: 12]

Thank you for pointing that out, I realize that too and went searching for a male her size.


Anyone have any idea what variant BN these are? I've never seen anything that are BN in this size.

[sunfish, posts: 280]

Did you get both from the same batch? And since the shop told you that they are not common BN (why?), did they say what they are supposed to be?

It is very unlikely that anyone will be able to ID your fish. There are about 150 Ancistrus species in the Cat-eLog here, and there are most likely a lot more. Most are extremely difficult to ID.

Your fish look like they belong to one of the species that are sold as Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus.

[eklikewhoa, posts: 12]

These were acquired separately.

The female came from a friend that raised them for several years, the male I traded two of her male kids for.

I posted a wtb for a male similar to size of her on another forum and was told she was not a normal bristlenose variant.

[eklikewhoa, posts: 12]

I found that link you posted but none look like the female I have in question.

She is easily over an inch bigger than the listed size and body shape along with pattern does no match any pictures listed.

[sunfish, posts: 280]

The listed size is standard length, i.e. the length from tip of the snout to the base of the tail. Based on your picture I'd say your female has a SL of about 4.5".

Common BN are sold in huge numbers. Many are bred, but still loads are wildcaught. Over here basically any BN that is brown with lighter spots will be sold as "common BN". At my LFS batches of wildcaught common BN always contain several species. Only very few people would be willig to pay a lot for a fish that looks like one that you can get for next to nothing everywhere:
Ancistrus sp`colombia`
Ancistrus multispinis
So no-one bothers with an ID for these fish. That is why many Ancistrus species are not commercially available. Unless you buy from a very dedicated (cat)fish shop you will not be able to get information on capture location which would be needed to have a chance to get a more accurate ID.

So I am sorry but I do not think that you will get any further than "Ancistrus".

[Mike_Noren, posts: 1395]

Am I the only one who get some striped Panaquolus-looking fish when hovering over the clog-tag Ancistrus multispinis, rather than a photo of the species A. multispinis? Is it just me, or an odd error in the cat-elog?

As for this thread... OP's fish don't look like Commons to me, but I can't say what species they are (or even if they're the same species!), and I agree with Sunfish that they're probably impossible to identify without knowing where they were caught.

[Dave Rinaldo, posts: 1758]

Am I the only one who get some striped Panaquolus-looking fish when hovering over the clog-tag Ancistrus multispinis

Nope
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=36022

[eklikewhoa, posts: 12]

Thanks for chiming in. I was hoping to find out if they were similar in variant.

Hopefully they breed soon cause the female is swollen and ready to go! With her size and belly swolleness she should put out quite a lot