rescued plec, please ID

[TheSmurfinator]

I've just rescued this plec from a pretty sorry life.

He/she was in a two foot tank with gravel, no cave, no bogwood, and being fed on that crap "supa" goldfish food.

It's now in a 2.5 foot tank - not big enough I know but it is all I have that is cycled except for my community tank which already has a golden nugget in it so it can't go in there.

It now has a hiding place that I've fashioned from various bits of decor, best I could do on short notice, and sand substrate, some bogwood ect and I'm going to feed him on some algae wafers and try to get him to eat some bloodworm and baby brineshrimp for protein, he looks a bit underweight. Is there anything else I should be doing for him and does anyone know what it is? I'd guess at a common plec but as I've never had one and haven't even seen many I'm not sure. He's about 10 inches long and I don't know how old he is.

Oops, forgot the photo LOL

[MatsP]

Sounds (by the size alone) like it's a common

Pterygoplichthys pardalis

, but without a photo, it's almost impossible to say.

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Mats

[TheSmurfinator]

photos added - sorry

[MatsP]

Definitely P. pardalis [or possibly

Pterygoplichthys disjunctivus

- it makes very little difference as they are both pretty much the same aside from the belly pattern.

--
Mats

[TheSmurfinator]

cheers guys, I thought so but wanted to be sure. Is there any thing else I can be doing for him until I can get my 4 foot tank cycled? I'm going to try and get him a bigger piece of bogwood and a proper cave sorted out bit I'm torn between giving him somewhere to hide and giving him enough room to move in the small tank he's in at the moment...

[MatsP]

I'd stick the fish in the four foot tank as soon as possibly - it will help the cycling process. Light feeding only.

By the way, for a fish like this, cheap goldfish food is probably better than expensive/good quality tropical flake-food, as the cheap goldfish food probably contains more vegetable matter and less protein, which is more suitable for a herbivore - so it's not quite as bad as it may seem.

--
Mats

[TheSmurfinator]

Ah, I didn't know that, thanks
So should I continue to feed him that as well as live food and algae wafers? I'll have to buy some more as I threw it away LOL

[MatsP]

Nah, algae wafers is fine. Go light on the live-food - unless you mean vegetarian "live" food from the vegetable counters of your local supermarket. Courgette and sweet potato are my favourites (and the fish seem to agree). If you go to "articles" on the right of here, you'll find more suggestions on what you can feed a fish - most of which can be found in the supermarket. In this case, you are looking for "herbivore" food.

I was just trying to say that there are worse things to feed a large pleco.
--
Mats

[TheSmurfinator]

Thanks hun, I'll take a look at your article. I'm still fairly new to catfish, other than cory's whic are a bit different, and wasn't exactly planning on getting this one LOL I think it is going to be a steep learning curve for both me and Hotdog _ the plecs new name ( don't ask!).
Hopefully considering the conditions he was kept in, he will be thankfull for the improvement and cut me some slack

[andywoolloo]

my common right now is eating a mushroom, a piece of zuchinni, a piece of cucumber and a strip of bell pepper. I like to give him a choice and spear it all on a stainless steele fork, with the prongs in the zuchinni so he can't hurt himself. He also loves mango, that's by far his favourite. And he has some romaine in there.

Mats food articles are fantastic and there is another good one also. I cannot remember the author. Part one is Mats and Part 2 is Chris. There. Great articles.

Ok so my common's favs are in order of pref: (his name is Rex by the way, and I love your hot dog name)

mango
mushroom
cucumber
romaine
zuchinni

Sometimes I give him just zuchinni then he eats all of that but given a choice he always goes that order. He also eats sinking algae wafers and sinking whatever and flake and everything my synos get, including defrosted frozen. One time he had a shrimp rubberbanded to a rock. He truly dug that. He usually gets some algae wafers when I get up , then after lights out he gets his fruit and veg.

I don't know if this helps.

[kyarilee]

I know this is old topic and this is my first post==however I have been perusing the site for a while. The picture of the plec looks like mine but mine has slightly more rounded markings than chevron stripes? As plecs get older do their colors/markings elongate change slightly? I live in Florida, bought him from Wal Mart so he could be pardilis, disjunctivius? or multiradius. He's not a sailfin cuz he doesn't have cross markings on his eye.

Thanks

kyarilee

[MatsP]

kyarilee, first of all: welcome to Planet Catfish.

As to the id of your fish, the chances are greater than a whole roomful of people not winning the lottery this weekend that your fish is P. pardalis. There is a small chance of it being P. disjunctivus - to tell the difference, we would need a shot of the belly patterns. P. multiradiatus is unlikely - they are not occuring very often in the hobby, as they come from further south than the usual imports (and the fish in WalMart are certainly captive bred).

To confirm, please post a picture of the fish you have - one side-view showing it's dorsal fin, and a belly shot showing the pattern on the belly region.

--
Mats

[kyarilee]

I'm almost sure it is P. pardilus. I did take pictures and comparing the two the head markings, body size, shape, etc is the same. He is 9 inches now and I am feeding him two algea tablets a day. On other days I feed the veggies, cucumber, zuchini. He even likes water melon. I feed him two algea tablets because it seems he always loses the first tab to theother fish. Is this too many algea tablets? When I took his picture, his belly is definately not hollow. I would post pics but I don't know how even after reading the sticky faqs. Thanks

[DutchFry]

posting pics:

- make sure the pics are saved somewhere on your pc
- go to www.photobucket.com (need to register) or www.imageshack.us (no need to register) and browse your files, then select the image you want to upload.
- after uploading, copy the direct link and paste in your message using the Img button ( [img*]paste link here[/img*] and remove the asterixes )
- hit submit and your image will show in your post

good luck!

[kyarilee]

here are hopefully the photos






Thanks for the directions on how to post the pics, that helped a lot


kyarilee

[Mod edit: beautify photo placement and use full-size images --Mats]

[DutchFry]

It's a

Pterygoplichthys pardalis

gets huge! be prepared....

[kyarilee]

Yeah I know. I originally had him in my pond but I decided to keep him inside after the winter. He will be moving to a 55 gallon tank in a couple of weeks, then eventually the pond when he gets too big forthe 55 gallon.

[aerykcerin]

Hey everyone. I don't see any chevrons on that fish. Can't be a Pardalis. My bet is with multiradiatus.
you can't just look at ventral spotting to ID these. I use the taxanomic key in "Redescription of Pterygoplichtyhs punctatus and description of a new species of Pterygoplichtyhs" Search for the pdf on google. If anyone has questions about the scientific wording just PM me.

[MatsP]

Hey everyone. I don't see any chevrons on that fish. Can't be a Pardalis. My bet is with multiradiatus.
you can't just look at ventral spotting to ID these. I use the taxanomic key in "Redescription of Pterygoplichtyhs punctatus and description of a new species of Pterygoplichtyhs" Search for the pdf on google. If anyone has questions about the scientific wording just PM me.

But the spots of the belly are partly joined together... And they are definitely not "few". Look at the picture shown in the PDF you are referring to - the ventral shot clearly shows small spots that are clearly separated and quite round.

And the PDF is also linked directly from our P. weberi page (or it should be, the link is unfortunately broken, the link isn't working - I will fix).

Link here:
http://www.scielo.br/pdf/ni/v4n4/a03v4n4.pdf

--
Mats

[aerykcerin]

I think we had a misscommunication on the last post. I will retract my statment that it is not Pardalis. Pardalis OFTEN has chevrons, not always, so that's a "my bad" on me.

But, the only ventral pics in the weberi article are of weberi and punctatus. so I'm not sure why that was brought up???

but i will definitly let someone kick me for my misID especially since my Multirad sit 4 feet from my computer and i see their bellies 80% of the time on the side of the tank.

The blurrs are my snail army and water spots


one spine, 12 rays


Ventral shot. more snails and yes.....poop

[MatsP]

I think we had a misscommunication on the last post. I will retract my statment that it is not Pardalis. Pardalis OFTEN has chevrons, not always, so that's a "my bad" on me.

But, the only ventral pics in the weberi article are of weberi and punctatus. so I'm not sure why that was brought up???

Your turn to kick me - to use a not-so-politically-correct-term, I had a "blonde moment".

With your permission, I'd like to send your pictures to someone who may be able to confirm the ID of the fish. Once that has been done, I'd like to add the pictures to the P. multiradiatus [obviously assuming the ID is deemed correct].

--
Mats

[Carp37]

I'm not able to do anything more than use the key Mats linked to, but that clearly identifies this fish as disjunctivus, based on the abdominal vermiculations, and lateral spots being separate.

Edit to clarify: I think the confusion in the key is the split for multiradiatus lacking BOTH chevrons and a vermiculated belly; pardalis has the geometric patterns of lines on its head, and variously well-developed chevrons, and disjunctivus lacks the chevrons but has a vermiculated belly- like multiradiatus it has largely discrete spots EXCEPT on its belly. Split 11/11' on Armbruster's key is a little confusing- on first reading it sounds as though it is saying that only multiradiatus has discrete spots, but it's actually saying that only multiradiatus has discrete spots ALL OVER (including its belly).

It still might be worth checking with a Pterygoplichthys expert, but I'm confident I've read the key correctly.

[Carp37]

Having checked the Cat-eLog entry for disjunctivus, the sole specimen shown doesn't seem to match Armbruster's key either- whilst it doesn't have chevrons it also doesn't have separate lateral spots, but vermiculations over its entire body surface. Whilst the individual in the Cat-eLog obviously a mature fish, I'm assuming Armbruster must have had access to fish of differing ages/sizes. I'm confused!

[aerykcerin]

I don't copyright my pics. i take them so we can share knowledge and hopefully get good info out there for everyone to share. You can send them on for a positive ID and post them in the ID section if you'd like. If you're satisfied they are P. multiradiatus I can take a few better ones as my background is plywood and it gives the water (and the pics) a yellow cast. i also have a juvenile I can supply photos of as well.

Please let me know via the forum, or PM

Eric

[MatsP]

I understand where you're coming from, and what you are saying. However, the law still applies:
Technically, if you press the shutter button on the camera, you own the copyright unless there is some other contractual situation in place that gives someone else the rights of the photo (e.g. you are being paid by a company like a newspaper, estate agent or photo studio to take photos - the photos may then belong to the company)

You may struggle to get much money if you haven't (in the US) registered your photos for copyright, but the right to copy them still belong to you, and you will certainly be able to tell someone using them to stop doing so, or pay you. If they refuse, you can take it to court, and the court will certainly tell them to stop using the photos.

I will try to get an ID.

--
Mats

[aerykcerin]

mats...

You have my full permission to use any or all photos I post to this forum. Please let me know if you need any more from specific angles. I'll be happy to send you any that you need.

[MatsP]

Right, here's the reply from Jon Armbruster:

That is probably P. disjunctivus, but it ranks as one of those I can't really tell very well - P. pardalis and P. disjunctivus are a nightmare. Definitely not P. multiradiatus. Here is a pict of P. multiradiatus. Note the small spots everywhere. The abdomen is the same. I need to get a better picture of one of these guys.

The attached image will be in P. multiradiatus in a few minutes (I hope!)...

--
Mats

[aerykcerin]

Mats,

I just got the same reply from Jon myself. Looks like we both went right to the source. And he's right that pic of his specimen isn't the best for a live ID. I also got a copy of his 2004 article from him with the key to Loricariidae. I'll be changing my "my cats page later". Looks like I'm still on the hunt for Mutliradiatus. I may just have to take a field trip to Florida or Texas myself and see what I can catch. But I did just grab 12 more of these today from a LFS, so hopefully i'll end up with a male.

Take care everyone

[MatsP]

I'm far from certain that the fish in the wild in Texas and Florida are actually P. multiradiatus - it is a not so uncommon misidentification.

--
Mats

[Carp37]

Right, here's the reply from Jon Armbruster:

That is probably P. disjunctivus, but it ranks as one of those I can't really tell very well - P. pardalis and P. disjunctivus are a nightmare.

From this, I assume Jon Armbruster is therefore saying that a vermiculated belly is NOT necessarily diagnostic of disjunctivus? If it was, we could still do with Eric's photos as we don't have any photos of live disjunctivus, but Jon's answer suggests that he can't be certain as to the ID.