PlanetCatfish.com

I recently purchased three L204. It looks like they are all males (see also http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... hp?t=18694 for the topic I opened about my L204). For this reason I am looking for L204 females.

I got in contact with someone who has two L204 and is maybe willing to trade one (if both are female) for one of my males.

Can you please help in sexing these L204? They are both about 8cm now (Total Length) so perhaps a bit small. However, all suggestions are welcome .

Here they are:
Fish 1:
http://www.venividivissie.org/album_pic ... c_id=13159
Fish 2:
http://www.venividivissie.org/album_pic ... c_id=13168
http://www.venividivissie.org/album_pic ... c_id=13167
http://www.venividivissie.org/album_pic ... c_id=13191

None of the photos lend themselves well to sexing the fish. They are great photos but it is helpful to view them from above. Profiles are nice too but less defining most of the time. That said, My guess is you are heavy on males.

I have 8 adults and also have a skew towards males. I have at most 3 females.

Some feel that we often receive a majority of males among the plecos because the males are easily captured when guarding nesting territories. It seems reasonable to me. I bought two groups, one as adults are all males and the second group was all juveniles. All my females came from the latter group.

This is not proof of anything as it would be inductive reasoning to reach that conclusion. It is what actually occurred within my particular group of L204.

Sounds as a reasonable theory, and it doesn't make me to happy . However, I will not rest before I have some females .

jp_verkade wrote:I recently purchased three L204. It looks like they are all males (see also http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... hp?t=18694 for the topic I opened about my L204). For this reason I am looking for L204 females.

I got in contact with someone who has two L204 and is maybe willing to trade one (if both are female) for one of my males.

Can you please help in sexing these L204? They are both about 8cm now (Total Length) so perhaps a bit small. However, all suggestions are welcome .

Here they are:

If the fish are about 15 cm. then the male should show spines on the pectoral fins and on the tail section. Also the females are usually a bit smaller than the males. When buying plecs I usually buy 6 and get 3 of the larger and 3 of the smaller. That usually works out good most of the time. My 6 L-204 are 13 to 15 cm. and the males are staking out caves but no luck yet.

Fish 1:
http://www.venividivissie.org/album_pic ... c_id=13159
Fish 2:
http://www.venividivissie.org/album_pic ... c_id=13168
http://www.venividivissie.org/album_pic ... c_id=13167
http://www.venividivissie.org/album_pic ... c_id=13191

[Mod Edit: fix quote tagsn -- Mats]