a 10 pnts question-pics version

[oli]

Lately i purchased a 2nd (hands) tank. The former owner had no time for his hobby anymore. In the tank where still 2 fishes, whome i gladly want to take care for. Sadly one off them is in a bad shape and underfed. Now i could use some help. Can anyone tell me what they are so i can feed them and give them some tankmates. Thanks (mates).

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[attachme

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nt=1]P2.JPG[/attachment] These pics are from the underfed one.

[Silurus]

Can't do this without a photo.

[Richard B]

Need a fair bit more info please. How big are the fish? tank set-up etc

As a start, live bloodworm would be a good offering

[oli]

I'm having probs loading the pics.
Will take new pics and re-edit.

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Here are 2 more pics. BTW he's about 8 cm sl.

[oli]

And here is the other one. Thanks everyone;BTW this one is about 8 cm sl.

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[Birger]

First one is most likely

Pterygoplichthys joselimaianus

at the very least a species of

Pterygoplichthys

Second Gyrinocheilus aymonieri or Chinese algae eater
http://www.google.ca/search?q=gyrinoche ... =firefox-a

Birger

[oli]

Thanks for that reply Birger. I think you nailed the 2nd fish, thank you. (Not a catfish-sorry)
But for the 1st one, may i ask to look at pics 2 and 3. His camouflage is differend on his head. Like a network instead of spots. Than it must be a Pterygoplichthys Multiradiatus.
Anyone other sugestions??

[Richard B]

at the very least a species of

Pterygoplichthys

Birger

Certainly is & perhaps both fish would appreciate some algae wafers or earthworm sticks etc

[Birger]

Yes I am not sure if you caught my edit but at the very least it is a

Pterygoplichthys

species.

Care is much the same for either of these.

[oli]

Thank you both Birger and Richard B.
Next month i'm moving, and in our new house we are preparing a 2 meter tank for ciclids and large pleco's.
So thats where they will move to, as i read that that chinese algea eater can grow to 27cm and become territorial, and the Pterygoplichtys can grow up to 50cm. (Now i get why the 2 fishes were for free )

[racoll]

The pictures are small, but it is more than likely

Pterygoplichthys pardalis

.

There's an outside chance it's

Pterygoplichthys multiradiatus

, but this could only be confirmed when the adult pattern manifests itself when the fish is 20cm or so.

The second is Gyrinocheilus aymonieri as already stated.

[MatsP]

As Racoll hints, P. multiradiatus is unlikely. P. pardalis or P. disjunctivus are common in the trade - almost every shop you go to would have these in stock for low prices. If you go to the P. multiradiatus page in the Cat-eLog, you can see that it's got 4 keepers including you. I'm pretty sure yours is an incorrect ID. I haven't seen the pictures of the other fishes (nor do I directly know any of the members aside from DeepFriedIctalurus), so I can't confirm/deny the correctness of these. The

Pterygoplichthys pardalis

has 180 keepers. And a lot of the more experienced members of this site do not keep these fish, since they are aware of their adult size, and they are not "thrilled" by such a common species. So I'd say this fish is MORE common than 45 times the P. multipunctatus - if anything, I'd say the P. multipunctatus is more likely to be kept by members of this forum that go for a long way to get unusual fish.

--
Mats

[oli]

Thanks, Racoll and Mats for these pointers. It makes sence. I re-edited "my aquarium".

[aerykcerin]

Hey everybody this is my first post here, so be gentle. i know we established oli's fish is a P.pardalis, but I wanted to let you know how hard P. multiradiatus really is to find. I get them at PetSmart in Ohio. Just look for the golden colored plecos in with all those pretty black ones. When they are small under 4" (10cm or so) they have a beautiful golden brown color. I see one or two in every other batch or so they get.

Since these are established in Florida, they are probably getting their stock from a collector there. You can also ID them to species well before the adult color matures, and I have sexed them at 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) There is a grwat article with a taxoniomic key I use. It has the original species description for P. weberi in it. If anyone wants it, just PM me your email. It is in pdf format. It is a scientific article, so the nomenclature can be a bit heady.

I'm not boasting here, I just want everyone to have good info and to let you know that all it takes is patience and research.

Ciao.

[MatsP]

Interesting - what exact key are you using to determine they are P. multiradiatus rather than "odd coloured P. pardalis"?

--
Mats

[Chrysichthys]

The pictures are small, but it is more than likely

Pterygoplichthys pardalis

.

The pattern on the underside looks right for pardalis.

[MatsP]

Armbruster has a key here:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/science_ ... erygo.html

--
Mats

[Carp37]

If I've read it correctly, from the link to Armbruster's key posted by Mats, multiradiatus is therefore keyed out from pardalis/disjunctivus by the fact that the dark spots are discrete, "never coalescing or forming dark chevrons on posterior half of body", in multiradiatus. I'd wondered how the single picture of multiradiatus has been identified as such, but it does agree with Armbruster's key.

I'm guessing that updating the Cat-eLog to include characteristics that separate a species from its most similar relatives would be a massive undertaking, but it would be a helpful "wish list" thing to add.

[MatsP]

If I've read it correctly, from the link to Armbruster's key posted by Mats, multiradiatus is therefore keyed out from pardalis/disjunctivus by the fact that the dark spots are discrete, "never coalescing or forming dark chevrons on posterior half of body", in multiradiatus. I'd wondered how the single picture of multiradiatus has been identified as such, but it does agree with Armbruster's key.

I'm guessing that updating the Cat-eLog to include characteristics that separate a species from its most similar relatives would be a massive undertaking, but it would be a helpful "wish list" thing to add.

Good question, and if you are (reasonably) sure that the fish is incorrect in the Cat-eLog, please post in the bugs section.

Also, if you have suggestion on improvement for any particular data-sheet's textual content, they can be updated - I'm not saying anyone will go through ALL species from ALL genus to add useful ID tips, but certainly if there is simple ID keys that we can add to species, I'd be happy to add text for those - I'd very much appreciate some help in formulating that text tho'. [I'm happy to do that myself, but it's going to take MUCH longer, especially if it's a species I'm not familiar with].

--
Mats

[Carp37]

Good question, and if you are (reasonably) sure that the fish is incorrect in the Cat-eLog, please post in the bugs section.

Sorry Mats- I was suggesting that the picture WAS consistent with the key (as it's colour pattern doesn't break up at the rear of the fish), not that it was wrong- I had simply been previously unaware of the difference between multiradiatus and pardalis.

[MatsP]

I do apologize - misread what you said... Still, I'd certainly appreciate help in putting "id" messages on different fishes that don't have much ID information (I've also suggested that we should have a "compare with" or "similar to" table for each species, so for P. pardalis would refer to P. multiradiatus and the other way around - but that's not even been accepted yet - I'm just explaining what I think would be a good idea).

--
Mats