Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

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Jobro
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by Jobro »

Funny thing Eric,

right before reading your latest post, I reread the first side of this thread, and when I looked at fish #3, I was wondering why you would ID this one as a male.
Then I remembered how awfully clueless I am when it comes to identifying females on my own group of wild caught L260s, so I put that doubt aside, knowing I am not qualified for sexing plecos... unless we talk about bristlenoses xD

Then I read your latest post and it hit me hard. I went back to the first page and revisited the 4 fish you posted there. #1 male, #2 female, #3 female, #4 female. It's almost obvious. Your pictures are very good. Putting headshapes aside (I can't see much difference there). Look at odontal growth: only on #1. look at the vents: #1 is so much different form the other 3. #1 has a flat, round o-vent. #2,#3,#4 all have a >-shaped vent that is definitely elevated. This elevated vent can be seen on your video as well.

The video doesn't really look like two males fighting for a cave either. I have seen L260 males fight over caves. That was not nearly as peacefully as in your vid. I was afraid one of them would have to die for the fighting to finally end and so I watched it for some minutes, prepared to stop them by force if needed (gladly no force was needed and nobody died). This looks rather like her trying to enter the cave. If they wanted to fight, the intruder would try to bite/suck the inhabitating pleco. While yours looks rather like "oh let's see if he let's me inside - nope, not yet. Maybe he's ready now? nope. How about now?..." No male intruder would leave the cave that easily once he entered it. He would block the other male inside and only let him go by a lot of brute force from his opponent. But this one is not even trying to block or even bite, it looks like it just wants to get the hell in there to spawn those eggs.

Last but not least evidence for this being a female: right after the "fighting" they were spawning :D right?
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by panaque »

I also think that this looks like pre-spawning behaviour rather than fighting. Given that it's the males that do the brood care it is not that surprising maybe that they can be choosy when it comes to females.
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

Jobro wrote:Last but not least evidence for this being a female: right after the "fighting" they were spawning :D right?
Yes, indeed. And that is what tipped me off to go back and review the video, where I then noticed the genital papilla.

I realize in hindsight that it may be very obvious that this clown with pale spot is a female, but in the initial photos that was not at all clear to me. True, its genital papilla resembled those of the other two females, and true it didn't have strong odontodes, but it does have some odontode growth, AND it was intermediate in SL between the two (longer) females and the one shorter male, AND most significantly, it did NOT have the almost spherical body shape of the other two females. I mean, those other two females are soooooooooo round that they are shaped almost like chicken eggs! But this fish, and the one definitive male in the group, are narrower in the midsection of the body.

I had read in other posts, and been told too, that factors such as genital papilla shape and snout shape were not reliable indicators of gender, and even body shape wasn't great, since even males can get pretty round... but obviously not as round as my two big females! LOL. So in the presence of all the other ambiguous factors, the narrow body and the slight odontodes led me to tentatively guess that this was possibly a male.

But I think the rapid occurrence of trapping and spawning after this video gives a pretty strong clue that this fish is indeed a female (even though the pale spotted fish was never actually seen to stay in the cave)... which means, going back to your question a few posts back, my spawning group is actually made up of 3 males and 4 females.

Cheers, Eric
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

panaque wrote:I also think that this looks like pre-spawning behaviour rather than fighting. Given that it's the males that do the brood care it is not that surprising maybe that they can be choosy when it comes to females.
I agree with your point that male mate choice could very likely be occurring here.

I suppose the reason why initially I did not believe this video showed pre-spawning courtship behavior is that the actions seen in this video are very different from the actual courtship behavior I witnessed previously (posted here: http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 20#p287071, and visible here: https://youtu.be/0Cm4wauHJBk and here: https://youtu.be/enojLYEgTW4), and it is also different from what is posted (here) as a courtship/spawning video on the CLOG page. These videos show the male (and sometimes the female) taking turns entering and leaving the cave, and doing a little "dance" around the mouth of the cave. They don't show the male rejecting the female or keeping her out of the cave with tail-swats (which by the way, are pretty funny to watch).

My original uncertainty about the motivations of the fish in this latest video are reflected in the fact that I referred to the pale-spotted individual simply as an "intruder" rather than as a "male." While I didn't think it showed any kind of courtship or pre-courtship, I was not sure whether it was a male or a female trying to get into the cave. All I was certain about, though, was that the resident male did not want to let them in during the video.

So if my most recent video does show pre-spawning behavior, it must be literally that - "pre"-spawning behavior... The female is eager to get inside, but the male has not yet decided that he wants to allow her in.

Okay, with this new analysis, I'm going to have to go back to YouTube and edit the title and description of this video.

Thanks for your input.

Cheers, Eric
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by Jobro »

Hey Eric,

was at a LFS today and found this hairy little fellow. Since my males are still small and don't have much odontodes yet, I went for him and brought him home.
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I just noticed his pectoral fins looking a little strange, while looking at those pictures... :-(

But at least i can't see much of a vent, so I think we can be sure females do have big vents compared to males, now.
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

Hi Johannes,

That is a very nice looking male. In my opinion, don't worry about the appearance of the pectoral fins (if your concern is that they look kind of "wing-like," similar to the pectorals on some banjo cats). I noticed that when I photographed my males and females in air, their pectorals looked like that too, but when photographed in water, the pectorals look more natural.

Cheers, Eric
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by Jobro »

You're right, these fins are only looking really strange on picture #3, but it's looking ok on the other pics.

I hope I can get some spawning going on soon, too. I have quite a fat lady in there. And with this new male there might be a chance. The other ("might be") males are not that big yet. That's the actual reason I bought him. :D

looking back at the first page of this thread and the pictures you posted, I noticed something even more obvious when looking at the vents from the side.

I modified two of your pictures to highlight the detail.

Male - no Vent visible form the side:
male_clown.png
Female - Vent clearly visible from the side:
female_clown.png
If you re-watch the first page you will notice that this seems to be true for at least those 4 clowns you posted there. Your Pictures are really very good. They should be used for sexing advices on panaqolus maccus in the clog. :-BD
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

Thanks for the compliment Johannes. You're right, the female vent is so big in my females that it's visible from the side in all three females' photos. I hadn't noticed that before.

What you may or may not realize from the ventral photos of these females is that their genital papillae looked like water-filled balloons - they appeared to be swollen, inflated and almost transparent.

What I don't know is how those would look if the females were young or in poor condition.

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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by Jobro »

I could catch my clowns and take some shots. But I'm not confident the pictures will be as sharp and rich in detail as yours :-(
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

Jobro wrote:...looking back at the first page of this thread and the pictures you posted, I noticed something even more obvious when looking at the vents from the side....

Male - no Vent visible form the side

Female - Vent clearly visible from the side

If you re-watch the first page you will notice that this seems to be true for at least those 4 clowns you posted there. Your Pictures ... should be used for sexing advices on panaqolus maccus in the clog.
Thanks for the highlight of the photos. I think your eagle eye was very sharp, since I hadn't noticed how visible the female genital papilla is even from the side view (fortunately, I'm not totally aloof - I was aware already of the differences in the ventral views). It's probably self-indulgent, but I went ahead and integrated these images into one comparative photo for the CLOG; maybe it wasn't necessary, since the lateral odontodes are such a good marker already, but I agree that the combination of dorsal-lateral-ventral images is helpful.

http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/ima ... e_id=19895

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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by Jobro »

Nice Work Eric,

I think the whole pleco community could profit from more good/usefull resources for sexing, just like yours.
Still, the main problem is: when people posts pictures as a reference, it's usually plecos in very good shape and condition and with obvious sexual dimorphism. Like the lateral odontodes on your male. Best thing would be making detailed shots of plecos in bad condition or youngsters and update those in intervals of like 2 months. So when they are gravid, mature and easy to sex, you can look back in time and maybe find some hints to sexing bad conditioned plecos. But it's not always easy to distinguish the individuals. One would have to keep them in separated tanks or create a tank with many "subtanks" inside. Quite a lot of additional work needed.

When I tried to sex my hypancistrus this was very frustrating. All reference material was either not showing any difference between the genders or showing obvious differences. But with plecos in bad condition those obvious differences were no help and the remaining references were not documented in any useful way. Like "that's a male" without any hint how to make out the difference. I have a suspicion that every hyp. without obvious female dimorphism - like being really gravid - will be remarked as a male by the internet pleco community. But I don't think a young / bad conditioned female will show those obvious female traits. Sexing by those traits just isn't good enough if you're going to buy a group and aim for a nice gender ratio.

Yesterday I caught all 5 of my clowns and tried to make some good pictures of their vents. I hope they will turn out useful. 3 of them are still quite small. Only one of them is showing some lateral odontodes, but going by vents I'd assume 2 of the 3 small ones are males and one is female. The bigger female is already quite gravid, not as much as yours, but still noticeable rounder. And the new bought male, well, it is obviously a male. So my assumption is 3M and 2F right now. I will update this with some pictures this afternoon. And maybe in some months I can take another set of pictures to compare the development. Especially on the 3 smaller ones.

Cheers Johannes.

Offtopic:
I read in a different post of yours, where you're trying to sex some fish and your taking orange pigmentation around the vents into consideration for sexing females. My L260s would occasionally show those orange/yellow spots on their vents. But I could wipe it off with my finger. It sometimes would return and sometimes not. I actually only tried wiping it off because I watched it suddenly becoming orange out of nowhere. I'm pretty sure it was the plecos pee. xD I have seen this on quite some hyps happening since then. They will pee out of fear if you turn them around. You can wipe it away with your finger. It looks exactly like the orange vents some L134 are showing on pictures in the web. Not sure, but this pee might be no good way of deciding on genders. At least you should try wiping it away before relying on it. Maybe some species are really orange. But it was pee on my L260s... pretty sure.
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

Jobro wrote:... Still, the main problem is: when people posts pictures as a reference, it's usually plecos in very good shape and condition and with obvious sexual dimorphism... Best thing would be making detailed shots of plecos in bad condition or youngsters and update those in intervals of like 2 months. So when they are gravid, mature and easy to sex, you can look back in time and maybe find some hints to sexing bad conditioned plecos.
True, this would be very valuable if an animal's sexual maturation could be "tracked," so that we could look for hints of gender as body features matured, and use the knowledge to look backwards for early signs of gender before the obvious mature traits have developed. Since certain distinctive traits (such as odontodes) probably won't have developed yet, this may come down to careful morphometric analysis, such as relative body proportions.

But one (minor) problem would be fear of shame - who wants to show off their fish in bad condition??? :)) :(( Right?

No, seriously, what you suggest is a good idea. Although I didn't have that goal in mind, the start of this thread does begin with some earlier photos of the first three clowns I had. But at that time, I didn't think to take photos from all three angles (dorsal, lateral, ventral). Obviously, even then other PC members could already sex them as one female, two males. But that wasn't yet apparent to me, and even others expressed concern about one of the males because his odontodes weren't well developed. And even in my latter photos, look how "thin" fish #3 was, even though it was a female; and she even had some slight dorso-lateral odontodes, and that totally fooled me.

When my Hemiancistrus guahiborum arrive, I'll follow your advice and attempt get a series of photos when I bring them home (presumably they will be too young to sex easily, and they might be in mediocre condition after all the transport from wholesaler to the LFS), then I'll give updates as they age.
Jobro wrote:... But it's not always easy to distinguish the individuals. One would have to keep them in separated tanks or create a tank with many "subtanks" inside. Quite a lot of additional work needed.
Hopefully it won't need to be so complicated. If we take the time to get photos which show identifying markings (spotting patterns, stripes, etc.), then hopefully months later we can go back to the fish, photograph them, and use their markings to correlate the new photos with the old photos. That may prove tricky, especially if color patterning is really immature at the time of the first photos. I have to be honest and say that my clown plecos look the same to me, and that's a pretty sad statement, given that as part of my training I'm supposed to be able to use natural markings to identify specific individuals from one another.... yeah, sad.
Jobro wrote:Offtopic:
I read in a different post of yours, where you're trying to sex some fish and your taking orange pigmentation around the vents into consideration for sexing females. My L260s would occasionally show those orange/yellow spots on their vents. But I could wipe it off with my finger. It sometimes would return and sometimes not. I actually only tried wiping it off because I watched it suddenly becoming orange out of nowhere. I'm pretty sure it was the plecos pee. xD I have seen this on quite some hyps happening since then. They will pee out of fear if you turn them around. You can wipe it away with your finger. It looks exactly like the orange vents some L134 are showing on pictures in the web. Not sure, but this pee might be no good way of deciding on genders. At least you should try wiping it away before relying on it. Maybe some species are really orange. But it was pee on my L260s... pretty sure.
Thanks for reading the other thread. You may have noticed that I haven't actually gotten the fish yet; my LFS owner tells me they'll arrive in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out what traits to look for, and yes, the yellow coloration around the genital papillae is an interesting possibility. So in your fish, that yellow can be wiped off, eh? Speaking as a biologist (and not just as a fish keeper), I would be surprised if fish urine would be so colorful, so what you observed may not be actual urine. However, if it does disappear, it could still be some kind of secretion/excretion (but just not urine per se). Even so, it might still be gender specific, if females produce more of this secretion than do males. Alternatively, it may be that the yellow is in fact a pigmentation of the skin and not merely a yellow fluid outside the body; but by "wiping" the body with your finger, you may temporarily cause the coloration to disappear (just as is the case when you press your finger forcefully against your skin - the pressure pushes blood and interstitial fluid out of the underlying tissue, and for a few seconds the skin appears pale or "off-color," before eventually returning to normal). So if you do examine your L260s again, and you try the wipe test to remove the yellow color, try this: continue to observe the skin around the cloaca/genital papilla for a few seconds to see if the yellow color returns. Just an idea.

Cheers, Eric
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

UPDATE: Of the two "bad dads," one of them (the one which is featured in the video on the previous page of this thread, in which a female is trying to get into his cave) still has his fry with him in his cave. It looks like he has only a handful of fry, maybe 5-7 (?); it's really difficult to see in his cave. The fry are moving about, but they still have plenty of yolk; they should be about 5 days old (post-hatching).

The other "bad dad," the one with a cave located under the Hydor Koralia water pump, was protecting maybe 2-3 fry for a while (he never did have many eggs to begin with, and he lost a few eggs early on, which fell out of or were rejected from his cave). But now I can't see any hatchlings in his cave. However, as of today, he has a brand new, large egg mass in his cave - deep in the cave. So maybe he's learned how to trap the female properly and get her to lay most/all of her eggs at once, and in a location which should prevent egg loss as the eggs develop.... Fingers crossed! :-S :-SS :YMPRAY: :YMAPPLAUSE: :YMHUG: \:d/

In the meantime, here is an updated video of the juveniles from the first two successful spawns, still in their fry basket. The juveniles are now about 24 and 35 days old. As explained before, the basket is positioned above an airstone and the Hydor Koralia nano pump; as a result, lots of air bubbles rise up around the basket, so I've furnished the basket with a small smooth river stone. The other objects in the basket serve both as hiding places and as food for the juveniles: Manzanita twigs, two Oak leaves (Valley Oak and Red Oak, if you care), a slice of raw sweet potato, several fragments of driftwood (different kinds of wood, but I have no idea what kinds), and algae wafers. Besides all these foods, I'm also supplementing with a few NLS Thera A+ 1mm pellets and an occasional omnivore sinking wafer (I forget the brand). In the video, at different moments you can count about 30 juvies, but there are still about 40+ fish in the basket, not counting a few loose in the aquarium with the parents. So far, no more deaths observed. I think we have the sudden-infant-death syndrome licked by putting them in the basket and providing all the food. Thanks, you guys, for that suggestion. \:d/ :YMAPPLAUSE: :YMAPPLAUSE: :YMAPPLAUSE:

Cheers, Eric

P.S., The video is organized in three segments: The first third shows the intact basket with all the furniture/food, so the babies are difficult to see. The second segment shows the large objects removed, but small objects still obstruct the view. The final segment shows the juveniles with almost all the objects removed - this last portion shows the most clear images of the juveniles, and you can pretty easily discriminate the larger 35 day old juvies from the younger juvies.

https://youtu.be/e4iNDv1Wp44

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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

UPDATE: Another spawning occurred two days ago, 1-2 days after a major water change. So I thought I would prepare for you a chart summarizing the frequency of spawning in the tank, and the males involved (assuming* the males are maintaining fidelity with their own caves and not moving from cave to cave during this time):
Clown pleco spawning chart.jpg
*Additional Notes:
  • Regarding cave fidelity, on 12-September the good dad moved to a new cave, located at a higher (vertical) level in the aquarium. Since that time, the good dad has successfully trapped females on more than one occasion, but so far he has not spawned in this new cave. Similarly, "bad dad #2," whose cave was right beside the Hydor Koralia nano pump, left his cave on 19-Sept immediately after I performed a major water change. His original cave was quickly occupied by a number of juveniles from spawns #2 and #3, and then the male did not return. Instead, he moved into a much narrower cave located immediately beside his first cave. So far, no sign of females in with him yet, and I wonder if females will even FIT inside this cave!
  • Although the dates of spawning may help us understand how often a male is willing to take on a new brood (in my tank, that seems to be a minimum of 10-12 days), I have no idea which of the four females are spawning each time. So this information says nothing about the ovarian cycles of the females.
  • I recognize that some of the interpretations in the chart may be arbitrary (e.g., considering spawn #4 a single event instead of two), but at least the information is there, so it can be reconsidered later if need be.
  • Although the most recent spawn happened within 1-2 days of a major water change, essentially every other spawn occurred at a time when there had been no water changes for a couple of weeks - not the result of a purposeful attempt to replicate a dry-season condition, but because I had reduced the frequency of major cleanings in order to avoid scaring dads while incubating eggs, so the dads wouldn't reject their eggs.
  • Regarding the two most recent spawns (11-Sep and 20-Sep), both "bad" dads have obtained larger clutches of eggs to care for, and the eggs are held deep inside the cave, in front of the dad. It seems that they are learning to be better dads, so maybe I shouldn't call them "bad" dads any more. :-p
Cheers, Eric
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

UPDATE: The fry have just been hiding out in the parents' tank. There is so much wood, and so many hiding places, that I really don't see much of the juveniles, except an occasional glimpse. But just after a water change and vacuuming today, I managed to catch a look at a pretty good-sized (at least 20) group of fry and juveniles.

The smallest in the photo are just 14 days post-hatching; the largest are from the late-July spawn, which would make them 64 days post-hatching. They're looking pretty good. :-) (Sorry, I realize that most of them are visible only as belly-shots, since they're sucking the glass, and the largest in the photo, which is NOT on the glass, happens to have its body blocked by another fish... but that's the best photo I was able to get.)

Also, one of the dads spawned again on October 11. This time he successfully got a big clutch of eggs from a female, and he managed to do it in the narrow cave I mentioned above, the cave so small I thought no female would fit in it. I guess they proved me wrong! :-) I believe it's "Bad dad #2," but with the males switching caves, I'm not positive.
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Clown pleco fry mix ~14-64 days old.jpg
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

Here's a couple of the fry (not the largest, but the largest I could catch) photographed during a recent tank cleaning. After all the spawns (some of which I made no effort to salvage fry), I have somewhere between 35-50 juveniles of various ages, from 2 weeks - 3 months old.

(Note: The green stuff on the right pectoral fin of the clown in my fingers is a strand of Java moss that tangled on the fish when I captured it.)
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Clown pleco fry 3 months old_5.jpg
Clown pleco fry 3 months old_4.jpg
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Last edited by bekateen on 20 Nov 2015, 03:46, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by Jobro »

Great, you'll be able to give away the first ones in just a few more weeks I guess :)

Congrats Eric!
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

Thanks, and you are right - they are almost ready to find new homes.

I'm going to hold on to the largest to see how big they will grow by 6 months, in order to provide more growth data for the BLOG. With the other fish I've bred, I realized that I had a habit of giving them away or selling them before they reached 6 months old, so for them I was never able to get 6 month SL data (apparently I'm not the only one - when I read other people's BLOG entries, I often find them to lack 6 month SL data; I assume it's because most fish get traded or sold before that age! LOL... or that the owners simply forget to follow up after so many months). Now I've started collecting that data and in order to do so, I am purposefully saving a few (the largest) individuals and keeping them until they reach 6 months old.

But once the smaller fish start reaching about 3cm SL, I'll start moving them out... there's NO WAY I'm going to keep almost 50 of these little guys, no matter how cute they are! ;-)
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

Thanks. Honestly, I didn't do the work, the clowns did. LOL. And all you guys (and ladies too) gave me a lot of help with the setup and care advice. Thank you too.

Mol_PMB, good luck with your L397! :-BD

Cheers, Eric
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

I've read in one of the older threads on P. maccus that these fish are slow growers. That's proving to be true for mine also; here are some of the juveniles, now about 5 months old, feeding. These aren't the largest of my juveniles, but they aren't the smallest either:

Clown pleco (Panaqolus maccus) juveniles 5 months old feeding on sweet potato and wood



Cheers, Eric
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by catfishchaos »

Juveniles have such attractive coloration, I wish it stayed!
I can stop keeping catfish whenever I want. I just don't think I'll ever want to do that...
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

catfishchaos wrote:Juveniles have such attractive coloration, I wish it stayed!
Yes, I wish that too; I think they look more like (but without the strong black body color) than .
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

UPDATE: The oldest babies reached 6 months old this week, so I tore their tank apart and collected them all for a nice photo shoot. Of all the fry, between 30 and 40 have survived to this age (I had almost 50 back in November); not great survival in the parent tank, but not bad.

The oldest and largest juvenile has just crossed 30mm SL (31mm to be exact) and some of the others are close behind, while the youngest, a month or more younger in age, are still small.

Here are a couple of photos of the group and the biggest fish, plus a link to a video of some which I moved to my ABN tank (I moved them because the ABN tank is less cluttered, and I want to be able to recover these clowns next week and sell them at my local club auction; if I put them back in the clown pleco parents' tank, I'd have a difficult time finding them again amidst all the driftwood crevices).

Clown pleco (Panaqolus maccus) juveniles 6 months old with young albino bristlenoses (be sure to view it in HD if you can - it looks so much better! b-)



I guess it's time to start saying goodbye to my little friends... :((

Cheers, Eric
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IMG_5363_cropped.jpg
IMG_5359_Cropped.jpg
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by MarlonnekeW »

Great video and pictures! I think the little ones are beautiful fish, so you must be a very proud breeder!
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by pleconut »

Well done! And it's really cool seeing all those young plecos, both the ABNs and clowns looking happy and really healthy. You've obviously done a good job at raising them all. I wish you the best success and look forward to seeing some more of your baby plecos soon. :d
Thanks Teresa
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

To both of you, thanks for the support and compliments, although I feel like the fish have really done all the work. :YMAPPLAUSE:

Yes I am happy with them, and now I'm waiting for my other fish (P. albomaculatus, H. guahiborum, and some corys) to get busy and start reproducing too. After a recent banjo spawning report on the Catfish Study Group Facebook page, I'm also wanting to rehome my banjos to a species tank and get them going again - it's been a couple of years since I've had any banjo babies around. And at long last I'm starting to get to the end of my baby ABNs, only about 50 left, so I think it's time to put mom and dad back together with an appropriately sized cave to let them get busy again. :-p

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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by MarlonnekeW »

Well, maybe at first, but you are the one providing the food and doing all the maintenance ;).
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by pleconut »

Looks like your ABNs will make more babies before mine, for some reason they have lost interest in each other, same cave as before, but the rejected gravid female,that was being constantly chased is waiting outside for the male, he may just want a different cave. 18 days exactly since last spawning- poor girl!
Thanks Teresa
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Re: Sexing Panaqolus maccus? Spawning at last!

Post by bekateen »

Patience, patience, patience. ;-)
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