PlanetCatfish.com

Hi All,

While cleaning my tanks today, I observed that the pectoral rays on one of my clown loris () were bright red; the coloration was equally strong on both pectoral fins on the same fish and the redness did not appear to spread onto the rest of the fin on either side. Although I know color changing pectoral rays occur in other species when sexually mature, it's my understanding that this is not normal in clown loris. I have a total of 4 clown loris; I believe the individual with red pectorals is a male; I was able to inspect a female which did not have this coloration; the other two were hiding in caves and weren't viewable.

I've never seen this before in these fish, so I'm concerned it might be an infection or other disease. Could it just be stress? Thanks for your help.

Cheers, Eric

P.S. In this post I tried using the name "lori" instead of "pleco," as a follow up to the discussion on another current thread (viewtopic.php?f=5&t=41878#p285650). For those of you interested in the discussion from that thread, what do you think? Is this something we can get to spread throughout the hobby? Should I have just called them panaques instead of loris? Or should I not fight history and just call them clown plecos?
Cheers

S/he has just been fighting another male for a hiding spot. Nothing to worry about.
The correct common name in Venezuela or Colombia would be "panaquito" which means "little panaque." As our German friends don't speak Spanish they came up with Panaqolus, which does not make sense in any language because panaque is Spanish and "olus" Latin.
-Shane

Okay, thanks Shane. I've never seen the red before. And if you'd mentioned them fighting before today, I'd have said that I've never seen that among these clowns either. However, after cleaning the tank (which involved rearranging the caves and furnishings) and replacing the fish, I did see the same two clowns fighting for a spot on a piece of wood. The one with the red pectorals lost to the female.

About this fighting for space, is it normal for females to take over and occupy/guard caves in the same way that males do? I've got four clowns and four caves. I've never seen any sign of courtship/spawning behavior, but almost every day I find all four fish inside of caves. I'd hope that the female(s) would show some interest in the males, but so far none.

One last question. Is four fish enough for a spawning group in this species? I have at least 2 males and 1 female. I recently added the fourth individual. I picked out what I believed to be a female, but it was relatively small so it might be a male. The only other tankmates are my group of 3 .

Thanks for your help. Cheers, Eric

I've seen this on my L104s before. Yes, nothing serious. Redness usually last a couple of days, once the fight for caves or spots end.
Large females do occupy caves even if they are not about to spawn. Furthermore, they can become very aggressive and evict smaller males from their hiding spots.

Okay, thanks Magdalo. Also, does the redness occur in both sexes when they fight, or only in the males?
Cheers, Eric

The redness is basically broken blood vessels under the skin, so not unlike a bruise.