Mystery Chaetostoma, impulse buy at PetSmart

[bekateen]

Hi All,

I just broke one of my cardinal rules and that is to avoid impulse buys. But at the same time, it's occasions like this that justify breaking rules!

I found this little rubberlip pleco mixed in with a tank filled with

Chaetostoma formosae

(L187B/L444). If this fish is by-catch from the same locality as the C. formosae, then I suspect this is

Chaetostoma dorsale

(L187/L443). But if this fish might have originated far from the home range of C. formosae, I think this fish looks a lot like

Chaetostoma nudirostre

(L188). What do you think? Are there other species I need to consider?

Direct YouTube link: New mystery Chaetostoma rubber lip pleco from PetSmart

As a side note, we've said a lot in the past in these forums about buying fish from chain stores like PetSmart, and I have some strong negative opinions about some of their business practices when it comes to selling fish. But at least in my town, the PetSmart tends to have pretty healthy fish. And if I can rescue an exotic fish, otherwise rare in the pet trade, when it comes in as by-catch, you bet your sweet bippy that I will. There's only one problem - I hate having "just one" of any fish. Even solitary species, unless they are really aggressive/territorial with each other, are better off IMHO if there is at least one more of the same kind somewhere nearby. And if you have only one, you can't try a breeding project! So now I'm going to have to go back to PetSmart more often and start trolling their tanks for more of these little guys!

I hope you can help me with the ID and wish me luck in my search for more!

Cheers, Eric

P.S., If I can get a few more of these, I'll get to remove another fish from my "wishlist" -

L455

; yeah, I know, this fish isn't L455... but it's pretty close and I would be satisfied with it!.

[Silurus]

I think the former is more likely than the latter.

[bekateen]

Thanks HH. I think so too - C. dorsale. It seems to me that the odds are better that this fish is collected in the same area as the formosae in the same aquarium.

The striping on the caudal peduncle on my fish isn't an exact match to the C. dorsale photos, but I suspect it's because my fish is so small (it's about 35mm SL).

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

The one thing that keeps me wondering about C. nudirostre is how much my fish resembles this photo of nudirostre, especially around the caudal peduncle:

My fish, 35mm SL

Any more thoughts?

[racoll]

Not many aquarium exports come out of the Lake Valencia area. It's quite likely that the "nudirostre" in the clog that look like your fish are misidentified. The Casa Maria ones are probably the real thing.

[bekateen]

Thanks racoll. Good to know. Now there are three reasons to assign this fish to C. dorsale:

• Most likely to appear as by-catch with C. formosae.
• C. nudirostre is not likely to be exported due to its locality.
• And I'll add one more point: After looking closely at the photos, and going back to the original photos of both C. dorsale and C. nudirostre in DATZ, I see that C. nudirostre has a vertically striped tail, whereas C. dorsale has a faint dark or rusty ting to the caudal fin. My fish doesn't appear to have strong bands on the caudal fin, so that implies C. dorsale.

Okay then. Now I've got to spend my weekend searching for more specimens.

Cheers, Eric

[N0body Of The Goat]

My C. dorsale was quite "washed out" when I won it at auction, but once settled, the body became and still is much darker.

[bekateen]

My C. dorsale was quite "washed out" when I won it at auction, but once settled, the body became and still is much darker.

Do you think the fish in my video looks washed out? I actually thought it looked quite dark and well-colored compared to how pale it was in the pet store.

It's quite likely that the "nudirostre" in the clog that look like your fish are misidentified. The Casa Maria ones are probably the real thing.

Not that it affects my conclusion that my fish is dorsale, but I see in those other pictures of nudirostre that the caudal fin is vertically banded. So perhaps those are correctly ID'd as nudirostre also.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

To quote a famous basketball announcer, "He shoots, HE SCORES!"

I drove to another PetSmart store in a nearby town (60 minutes away) this evening and hit a gold mine - five more

Chaetostoma dorsale

mixed into an aquarium with an equal number of other Chaetostoma - mostly C. formosae, but there were a few specimens which had no spots at all (neither dark- nor light-colored spots)... although they might have been stressed/color-faded C. formosae also).

Here's a video of the five new fish in a holding container before adding to quarantine:

Five new Chaetostoma dorsale

There is a dramatic difference in size among the fish I found at the store tonight - the smallest were the same size as the specimen I bought last night (about 35 mm). The largest specimens are about 13 mm longer.

Now all I have left to do is get them to start eating and not die, and then give them months if not years to grow larger, and then get them to spawn... Wow, I'm practically finished! I might as well create a BLOG entry right now, just to get it out of the way! (LOL - I'm totally joking there in case you can't read my intra-personal sarcasm... there are sooooooo many points of failure ahead of me. LOL again)

So in less than 24 hours I went from one impulse purchase to a total of six impulse purchases! Yikes. But I also have a fully stocked ready-to-grow potential breeding group of Chaetostoma dorsale! I know I won't be the first to spawn these if I succeed, but I will be proud of my fishes none-the-less if they bless me by spawning and making little baby Chaetostoma.

Any advice you wish to share is greatly appreciated.

Cheers, Eric

P.S. Here are a couple of photos of the "oddball" unspotted fish in the store tonight. This specimen was the largest fish in the tank. I deliberated about buying it, just in case it was a third species (not dorsale, not formosae), but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is just a stressed and color-faded formosae, so I passed on it, and two others that were like it in the tank.

[bekateen]

Sad news. One of the six dorsale died today of unknown causes in the quarantine tank. Looked perfectly healthy overall, although perhaps a little thin. The other five are still with me. But I haven't seen any of them eat yet.

[N0body Of The Goat]

Sorry to read the update, I've lost some Chaetostoma too, watching them starve to death despite best efforts is heart breaking. Some never seem to adapt to identifying hobby food, after being caught in the wild.

What and how are you feeding them?

I've had mixed resulting with "painting pebbles" with Tetra Prima and crushed wafer (mixed with egg yolk, leaving them to dry for ~2 days before adding to tank), plus simply squashing New Era pellets on to pebbles. After a couple of weeks, I could then simply drop food into the tank.

[Jobro]

Best way I found to get plecos adopt to new food is actually placing them in a tank with a bunch of good eating plecos. They will come and eat when they see other plecos eating. Wild caughts will actually start eating within 2-3 days in my grow out tank. There is so much "competition" and this seems to encourage them to eat. Might not be easy with chaetostoma, since they usually like colder water than most other plecos if I remember correctly.

[bekateen]

Thanks for the advice. Current foods are a mix: Algae wafers, fresh raw sweet potato slices, JBL shrimp pellets, frozen "blood worms" (mosquito larvae, not annelids), and a crushed mix of NLS pellets, flake food, and freeze-dried Tubifex worms.

Alas, all my other tanks are 78-86F, way too hot for these rubberlips. So I won't be putting them in any of my current tanks. While they are in quarantine, I'm going to have to set up a new permanent tank to accommodate their particular needs.

I do have some Repashy meat pie and spawn & grow which I can prepare and paint onto rocks. Will give that a try.

It's pathetic, but I feel the need to say, "Day three, no more deaths," as if that was some kind of accomplishment. (sad LOL)

Cheers, Eric

[dw1305]

Hi all,
It sounds a good diet.

Have you seen these threads?

<One metre Hillstream ("http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... reen+algae")>

Chaetosoma eggs ("http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... nk#p224821") and

Chaetosoma formosae spawning ("http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... ae#p259941").

cheers Darrel

[bekateen]

Hi Darrel,

Thanks. I hadn't seen the first thread, but I read the other two end-to-end.

Cheers, Eric

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Thanks. I hadn't seen the first thread, but I read the other two end-to-end.

I remembered the post by "Gertbl", where his Chaetosoma had removed the green algae growth, so when it wasn't in the Loricariid forum it had to be in "Tank Talk".

Looking back through the thread, this image suggests a "green leaf" might be a food option.



If you didn't have an Echinodorus to hand, you could try Spinach, a Brassica or a Romaine (Cos) type Lettuce, others who have kept them (I haven't) may be able to suggest favourite vegetables.

cheers Darrel

[bekateen]

Sadly I lost a second fish today. I awoke yesterday to find this individual upside-down on the tank floor convulsing. Extra water changes were my response and the fish seemed to get a little better (uprighting itself), but tonight I found it dead.

I've got spinach in the tank as an additional food choice. So far I haven't witnessed any of the rubber-lips eat even once. Besides the raw spinach leaves, I've offered boiled Brussels sprout, raw sweet potato, algae wafers, shrimp pellets, frozen blood worms, NLS Thera A+ pellets and regular flake food.

Hopefully the remaining four fish find their appetite.

[N0body Of The Goat]

Sorry to read the update.

Here is a really crude photo of my C. dorsale...


And my group eating loose Tetra Prima and New Era Catfish Pellets...
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipM ... JhT0VKbC1B

Taken literally just before our recent four day holiday, where I had nobody "pet sitting" the fish, hence the excessive feed for 19 fish in that Rio240.

That photo of Gert's fish, just above this post, has at least one Chaetostoma that looks like my mystery one that was given to me by MartinS. I think they might well be the newly classified species mentioned at http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 14&t=43701

[bekateen]

I went to a third PetSmart in a different town and found three more C. dorsale mixed in with their C. formosae. Bought all three, so now I'm up to seven. I'm moving all seven into a larger quarantine tank tonight. Hopefully they all adjust well.

Three PetSmarts within 60 miles of each other, all with blends of C. formosae and C. dorsale in what is supposed to be tanks filled with C. formosae. Over the years I've never paid any attention to the individual rubberlips at my PetSmarts (since the fish being sold weren't L445s), so I don't know if this contamination has been going on all along. But at least for this month's shipments of fish to my area, C. dorsale is obviously a very significant contaminant, representing at least 25% of all the rubberlips I've found in three nearby stores in one week. All I can say is WOW! I wish all of their fish came in with so many contaminants.

[bekateen]

Set up a proper tank for them tonight by moving my L201 big spots into my 20 Gal, then restructured the L201's former 10 Gal tank for the rubber lips: A dual sponge filter, a power head and a 3 inch air stone under the power head. Fine gravel substrate with large round and flat river stones, along with one piece of driftwood.

One of the rubberlips which I bought last week had developed a spot of fungus near its eye (you can see the white spot on its head in the photo below of all seven (four older, three new today, plus two new Ancistrus from today)). So I've added pimafix and melafix to the aquarium to treat that individual and prophylactically treat the others.

This quarantine tank is larger than the initial quarantine I used, and the aeration is much better, so I expect the fish will like this better and hopefully this will stimulate their appetites.

Cheers. Eric

Here's a video of the quarantine tank, but unfortunately all the fish are hiding, so you don't get to see the fish inside.

Chaetostoma dorsale quarantine tank

[bekateen]

Here's a better picture of the rubberlip with fungus the next morning.

Do you think pimafix (and melafix together as a precaution) will do the job? I'm not really knowledgeable about meds.

Thanks, Eric

[bekateen]

I'm treating the entire tank with Pimafix and Melafix (both full strength) and I will run the recommended 7 day therapy (assuming the fish doesn't die first). Also, I captured the fish and applied some API Liquid Fungus Cure (acriflavine) directly to the fungal mass using a Q-tip.

The medication is two years old and the bottle says the product is out of date. I know that many chemical dyes have relatively long shelf lives (at least, the ones I use when preparing histology slides do), so I hope this is still active (although perhaps with reduced activity). But who knows for sure? I tried searching it up on Google and couldn't find any specific information. So only time, and the survival or death of the fish, will tell.

Honestly I do not have high hopes for this individual because (A) it was very lethargic and easy to capture when I applied the swab of medicine, and (B) as with the other fish, this individual has not to my knowledge eaten since I bought it last weekend, so it is probably very weak to start with. Praying for this little one (and all the rubberlips).

As an aside, I asked the sales clerk at PetSmart if their store tracks how many fish get returned dead or sick, so that they would know if one species or another is particularly problematic as a merchandise item? The assumption I'm making is that the store would probably stop selling a particular fish species if that species were prone to dying more often than other species. And maybe the company does at a corporate level, but surprisingly the fish department employee said that they did not - he had no idea whether rubberlips had more mortality than other species. I would expect so if everything I read about rubberlips is true - particularly that the wild caught rubberlips have a tough time transitioning to aquarium food and tend to die of starvation.

Cheers, Eric

[naturalart]

Yet another reason not to mess with Petsmart too much.

[bekateen]

Yet another reason not to mess with Petsmart too much.

Generally yes, I feel the same way. However, as I've said elsewhere, when considering PetSmart and Petco, at least in my area, I consider PetSmart the lesser of two evils. Also, if wild-caught rubberlips really are a challenge to transition into captivity, then this is more of a Chaetostoma problem than a PetSmart problem. True, PetSmart could choose not to sell them, but even so, rubberlips bought at any other store, even the best LFS, might also have trouble weening onto an aquarium diet.

Finally, although the diet problem is affecting all of my rubberlips so far (and undoubtedly weakening the immune defenses of all my rubberlips), this fungal infection developed in MY quarantine tank, seven days after I bought the fish. So I really can't blame PetSmart for the fungal infection.

[naturalart]

I wasn't specifically referring to the medical issues as much as the lackadaisical approach these big box stores have toward fishkeeping. This overshadows all the other problems you are referring too. With a little focus, insight and investment, those rubberlips would have been in Q for a month, and then in a 'cool' tank at the point of display. That would cut down, at least on the consumer attrition rate, significantly. But that's not necessarily the Big Box stores way of functioning.

[bekateen]

I wasn't specifically referring to the medical issues as much as the lackadaisical approach these big box stores have toward fishkeeping. This overshadows all the other problems you are referring too. With a little focus, insight and investment, those rubberlips would have been in Q for a month, and then in a 'cool' tank at the point of display. That would cut down, at least on the consumer attrition rate, significantly. But that's not necessarily the Big Box stores way of functioning.

Absolutely agree. Sadly, very few LFS I know actually bother to QT their fish either - they just don't have the extra tank space. The Wet Spot in Portland, Oregon is one of the rare exceptions. That said, at virtually all other levels of care, the typical LFS outshines the big box stores, and that is where you're spot on. Every time I enter a big box store and I see rubberlips housed with clown plecos for example, I encourage them to switch the rubberlips to a cooler tank. I also advise the staff to add wood to the clown pleco tanks, but only about half of my nearby big box stores have any wood in their clown pleco tanks.

[bekateen]

On a positive note, I've seen three individuals pooping tonight (although not a lot of poop)... Any poop at all should be a good sign that they are starting to eat. Their bellies are still very flat looking so I hope they begin to round out.

Cheers, Eric

[Jobro]

Just a side note, did they have any wood in the Q-Tank before?

[bekateen]

Yes

[bekateen]

Sad news: I found "Little fungus-face" dead tonight... So much for the effort to rescue one little rubberlip.