New to plecos, 3 baby BNs, should I be concerned?

[PaperDoves]

I set up a tank a few months ago, after not having had any aquariums for years. Much has changed since I last had fish, and I recently discovered BNs (which opened up a whole new world of absolutely fascinating plecos for me, but that's another story). I bought 3 babies:

One 'regular' (I'm fairly certain, from perusing the cat-elogs here, that he may be of the 'Colombia' variety. It is black, with round silvery dots (no mottling of any kind) all over its body and fins, and white edges on its dorsal and caudal fins) from the LFS.
One longfin green dragon, from a LFS several hours from me, bought via their eBay store.
One (red) calico, from the same source as the green dragon, but I'm fairly certain that this one is from different parents than the green dragon (I may be wrong about this, but the two came in at significantly different sizes, plus I can't find any account of people getting calicos and green dragons in the same clutch, please correct me if I'm wrong).

The regular one is growing at the rate that I expected to see, no worries there.

When the other two arrived, the calico was somewhat smaller than the green dragon, who was in turn somewhat smaller than the regular one. They arrived a week or a week and a half ago, and in that time the green dragon has grown much more quickly than I anticipated. It is now just barely larger than the regular one (body size alone, as compared when they are side by side, not counting finnage), and is growing noticeably larger almost daily. It is growing so quickly that my 8 year old is convinced that the calico is getting smaller, lol.

That brings me to my concern. The calico isn't growing at the same rate as are the other two. It seems just as healthy (very) as the others, and I observe it eating frequently- it gets plenty of veggies plus browses all over the tank all day with the others. It is growing, and is not seeming to decline in condition as far as I can tell, but it's now considerably smaller than the green dragon (of course this difference is exaggerated due to the green dragon's longer fins).

Is this difference in growth rates okay?

Also, do both sexes display territorial behavior? I've noticed a small bit of this, mostly from the regular one, a smaller amount from the green dragon, and none that I've seen from the calico. Granted, these are small fish, including fins the largest is under 1.5 inches. The behavior that I'm referring to has consisted of the one in question rushing over to sit near its target (generally another pleco, but sometimes one of my peppered cories), making its spots much brighter in the case of the regular one, and trying to whack its target with its tail. It's pretty cute, actually, and I'm not at all concerned about this.

[bekateen]

Hi PaperDoves,

I've had fish some of which grow faster and some which grow slower. It's possible that the activities of the larger fish are suppressing the growth of the smallest, but it's probably more like that the smallest is small just naturally - just as a litter of puppies will often have a "runt" in it, this fish of yours may just stay smaller.

Keep in mind that the green dragon and the calico are variants of the same species (

Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus

) and that both are very inbred. So it's quite like that this could bring out a growth difference too.

The only way I trust to get small fish to grow is to move the smallest fish to a separate tank, away from the bigger fish. If the individual was being growth-suppressed by the others, this should start to change. But if it grows slower because of its own natural genetics, then it will continue to grow more slowly.

Word of caution: If these fish of yours are of mixed sexes, they will hybridize the first chance they get once adults. And because all three fish are of different genetic stock, you're more than likely going to end up with babies that are brown and short-finned.

The aggression is normal. Just be sure that as they grow, you give them all plenty of space and multiple hiding places so they don't need to fight. My female albino BN can be kind of bossy to my male, but sometimes they choose to hide side-by-side too.

Cheers, Eric