Does anybody know this species?

[thezebraman]

[Dave Rinaldo]

Parotocinclus sp(3)

?

[thezebraman]

Yes, that one was very much like mine. Is that a usual fish in the hobby?

[Richard B]

Yes, that one was very much like mine. Is that a usual fish in the hobby?

Stuff like this is very infrequently seen - if it is your sorts thing, get 'em while you can.

As a side note, the similar

Parotocinclus cf_eppelyi

seems hard to keep for lengthy periods - i wonder if these are the same ?

[thezebraman]

Do you think they get big?

[MatsP]

They do not get big. However, there is one of these that are sometimes confused with fry from a Hypostomus, if you get that variety it WILL get big.

--
Mats

[Fantasticfins]

I remember a fish with the species "britskii" but I can't remember the genus.

Dale

[Richard B]

I remember a fish with the species "britskii" but I can't remember the genus.

Dale

The only thing i can find is Brochis which is something different entirely

[MatsP]

Well, if we go by the Cat-eLog, Richard is right. If we use Fishbase, there are 12 species with "britskii" as the species name. Of those, five are catfish. So there are another four catfish that have "britskii" as the species name:
Auchenipterus britskii
Corumbataia britskii
Parotocinclus britskii
Pimelodus britskii

Of these, C. britskii and Parotocinclus britskii are Loricariidae, so Parotocinclus britskii may well be the ID of this fish - I don't know at all, as I only looked up the names so far. Since the Parotocinclus is described in 1974, the original description is probably not online...

Edit: It appears that Schaefer, 1993 contains details of how to tell this from other similar species - how useful it really is I'm not sure:

Can be distinguished from its congeners by the following combination of characters: 21-31 premaxillary and mandibular teeth, typically 24-25; dorsal profile of snout broad and moderately parabolic, not acutely pointed; head width 75-98% of head length, 18-22% of SL median group of abdominal plates irregularly arranged; pigment on pectoral-fin spine arranged in 5 blotches; two blotches on the unbranched anal ray, single band on the branched anal rays

Edit2: Look at species search - we now have 5 species of species names with "britskii". Thanks to my new super-powers that Jools gave me, I could add the new species in to make a "complete set". There is no data in any of them yet, but at least there is an entry in the Cat-eLog whenever someone gets the idea to search again!

--
Mats

[MatsP]

Thanks to Mark Sabaj, we even have pictures of

Parotocinclus britskii

. It looks possible as the ID of this species, but without knowing capture location, I'm not entirely sure we can get to a confirmed ID.

--
Mats

[apistomaster]

A Parotocinclus, one of what I am calling Mikro-Parotocinclus because they are full grown at 2.54 cm. I have a 20 Long stocked with about 15-17 Parotocinclus cf. epplyei. They are delicate creatures. I have been keeping mine alone but i plan to move 10 Aspidoras pauciradiatus in with them tomorrow. My specimens only eat Spirulina sticks but they don't eat all and so some snails are beginning to become too numerous. I think the Aspidoras could help clean up some of the food. I have had the Parotocinclus about 4 months and the Aspidoras over a year. Seems like a reasonable combination. If either were to spawn I don't think they would bother the larvae or fry.
I am pleased to see more of these Mikro-Parotocinclus showing up more lately. I think we have a lot to learn about these little suckers. I'm keeping mine in soft slightly acid warm water. KH 2, GH 3, pH 6.6 and temperature of 82*F. I have a vigorously bubbling sponge filter and another sponge filter hooked up th a 160 lph power head. They seem to prefer to stay in or near the current from the power head. It is laid over on it's side and the power head has blown away all the substrate and many of the fish hold on to that bare patch on the bottom in the full force of the current.