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Hi folks, i bought this pleco home from work today. At 5 inches total length approx. Looks pale but dark olive green with yellow spots, translucent fins with fainter yellow spots with a Panoquolus style lyre tail, with very long extensions at the tips. A very small almost triangular shaped mouth.Thing is he needs a bit of TLC, as in some good feeding. So i need to know what exactly he is if possible. I say he as he looks to have some odontode growth so he may even be an adult male whatever he is. I have attached some pics below .
Need to know what to feed him up with, what exactly he is will help me get him to good condition. Was sold as a galaxy pleco L007. But his tail is completely different. I didnt get a shot of his tail he's now in the tank so will try later.

Stating the obvious, but your photos are a little blurry. Is the mouth right for Panaqolus? Is it ? The off color may be stress.

That's what I'm thinking, I rescued him! He was the only one, but had no wood, he is pooping so he has been eating something. I've now given him some from the L397s tank and a cave he's gone straight to it, he's slightly different in shape than the L397s except the tail.

It took my mustard spots a few tries to learn this, but mine really like to eat the raw sweet potato.

Im going to try to get another pic now hes in the tank.

He's not cooperating for pics when he's settled down i will try again.

It looks like a young male to me.

Jools

I think you're spot on Jools, and Eric, now he's in the tank, he's a lot darker, looks more like a Panoquolus Albomaculatus than anything else, I've not seen a galaxy pleco with a lyre tail, he's gone straight for the wood, and a small piece of repashy meat pie, this is not a staple food, BTW. I'll feed him very similarly to my L397s, obviously wood, along with the meat pie courgettes (zucchini) and sweet potato, I will give him some morning wood, if he his wild caught he may not have had wood for a while, as mentioned, he does need some feeding! Glad i got him as he was being treated as if he was an L007. When he's in good health I'll try to get a couple of young adult females for him. Thanks to you both!

Resembles a Panoquolus Albomaculatus. And a good specimen despite his condition. I checked the CateLog, I've mixed him up some repashy morning wood, and sweet potato, He's in a QT tank, with lots of wood. Will the fact he's not had wood for some time have any effect on him? I'll will give him a spare wooden cave from my L397s tank and start setting up my second Panoquolus sp tank
Edit.Definately a Panoquolus Abolmaculatus, on the plus side, some good news he's been having good old go at the repashy morning wood/soilent green/meat pie combination i give my L397s. Looks like it may turn out well for him

I do not expect that the lack of wood in its past diet will cause a problem as long as you are simultaneously offering a diversity of foods, some wood and some easier-to-digest foods. The only real problem I could envision, and this is not a guarantee that it would happen, is that if the animal had been deprived of wood for a long time, we might imagine a change in the gut flora (bacteria and other microorganisms) of the fish, specifically a change which resulted in a decline in the number of wood-digesting microbes. The initial consequence might be temporary malnutrition if the fish is fed a strict wood diet, lasting until the microbes could repopulate the gut, assuming they were able to do so in the aquarium. Realistically though, I suspect that your fish, no matter how mistreated since capture, probably has a decent amount of wood-digesting gut microbes. And more importantly, if it's been eating anything at all on a regular basis, you don't have to worry about the type of problems that arise when fish are starved - e.g., a loss of gut lining and an inability to handle food, especially nutritious food with protein.

If it is eating Repashy gel and sweet potato on a regular basis, that will be more than enough to nourish this fish for now. And if there is wood in the tank, then you can expect that the fish will be sampling that too. Even a little wood intake will probably foster the recolonization of some wood-digesting bacteria in the gut.

The only other thing you might try, and this is entirely speculative with no scientifically-validated data to support it, is to vacuum out some of the Panaqolus poop from your L397 tank and dump it into the tank with your new mustard spot pleco. Theoretically, the L397 poop may act as a source for new wood eating microbes if either the mustard spot eats some of the poop or the poop microbes can transfer to and survive on the wood in the tank. I want to emphasize that this is theoretical because although the subject has come up a few times before in the threads of this forum, one conflicting point that also gets mentioned is that the actual important microbes may have a short life-span outside the body (if so, then old poop floating around in the tank may have no live gut microbes remaining in it), and of course there's no proof the other fish are actually eating any of the poop - we just hope for the best.

Although it's unproven and may be of no nutritional consequence, to be honest, I make a point of transferring adult P. maccus poop to the hatching grow-out tanks for my other pleco fry, just in case it helps.

Cheers, Eric

P.S., Just how spiny/hairy is this male? Can you get a better photo of his odontodes? And if he is 5 inches TL, is he about 3.6 inches (roughly 90mm) SL? I ask because your fish is larger than mine (I think my biggest is still less than 80mm SL; they haven't grown hardly at all since I bought them); I think I have one male; he is only ~70-75mm SL, and he is a little pointy on the sides (as are my other two, which I think are female), but he does NOT have obvious large odontodes. I'm still waiting for them to grow enough so that I can confirm their sexes. But I don't know at what size that will be definitively obvious. Thanks

Thanks Eric, I did donate him a piece of wood and a wooden cave from the L397 tank, which would have had sawdust/residues, and possibly poop, I can do a syphon donation also, As for the odontode growth, I've not yet had a good view, in the tank, to see how developed they are, but if he's not been kept in the proper conditions, for this species then they may be underdeveloped anyway, also he's had no females around, which might be a contributing factor in this underdevelopment. He's not interested in the cave as yet but this again may be down to lack of females. I hope to get some females now, maybe another male, then get them to a good condition adult size, and then introduce them to him, breeding these hasn't been done as far as i know, i think chances are good if all of a sudden he has some other mature mustard spots suddenly introduced. Obviously I'm hoping his condition will improve, but the fact he's not been in the tank long and eating, gives me some hope. As soon as i can get a good pic of the odontode growth, and the the SL i will do so. (M estimated guess, as I only see tails sticking out, is that he's slightly bigger than my male L397s that have significant, but not completely developed odontode growth) . As soon as i get a pics etc, I'll post them in your Panoquolus Albomaculatus project thread.

I just looked at the Clog page again one, of the owners of one of these writes.
"Orange spotted known locally as fire glow plec imported as galaxia..."
And another writes.
"UPDATE WAS SOLD AS L007 THERE ACTUALLY LDA 031
Seems the confusion may have something to do with collection locality.

That's a common mislabeling as far as I've seen. I don't know about the name "fire glow" pleco, but I've found several stores that sell albomaculatus as "galaxy plecos" EVEN if they go on to correctly ID them as Panaqolus albomaculatus instead of any of the that go by the name galaxy pleco. Yes, some do misidentify these as any of the Leporacanthicus L numbers, like . But some do correctly call them Panaqolus or .

For example, WetSpot Tropical Fish labels their albomaculatus as galaxy plecos (here's their photo gallery with the mislabeled fish). So it's not that they are misidentifying these as Leporacanthicus, it's that they think the name galaxy pleco should be applied to albomaculatus in lieu of the name "mustard spot pleco." Just as oddly, some stores (like WetSpot) don't call their Leporacanthicus galaxias, Leporacanthicus aff. galaxias, or Leporacanthicus cf. galaxias (even though their Latin name is "galaxy!"). Instead, they simply call them "vampire plecos," which of course is an alternate name for most of the Leporacanthicus.

At least I know what he is now, probably a good thing he's a Panaquolus sp, at least I have some experience with this genera. I'm also planning on getting 1 more wild caught male and 3 females, this time from someone that knows what they are. Do you think it's a good idea to introduce them all to eachother when they are all mature adults, in terms of possibly breeding them. I think my one is wild caught as he has a slight kink, although it's completely healed, in the caudal fin

I have no idea. Hopefully someone else does.

My newly aquired male mustard spot, is already producing lots of Panoquolus sawdust poop, and eating everything I've fed him- except the veg but there are a few bitemarks where he's tried it. I don't make a habit of making announcements such as "my pleco's are pooping". Normally I'm not as happy as I am to see this, but it means its likely I will be able to turn it around for this little guy. Rescuing him wasn't a bad call. This little guy has been in a tank with no wood since November. To see him doing so well makes me very happy.

They are another one of my favorite plecos

Now I've actually got one, probably one of mine also.