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[Esther]

Hello,

I want to introduce myself. Esther (38) from a medium sized town called Katwijk aan Zee (at the sea ) in the Netherlands. It has been a long time since I wrote English so sorry if my spelling is wrong and feel free to correct.

I have two tanks. I started with (don't laugh) goldfish. The four of them are swimming in a large tank of 240 litre. In January of this year I bought an Pleco (Hypostomus Plecostomus) and have no idea what species exactly. It's a shy little fellow. Tree months ago someone I know, wanted to get rid of his Ancistrus (very little orange guy) so I put him into my tank.
Wish I haven't done that

The Ancistrus (about 8 cm.)is now twice the size of the Pleco (about 4 cm.) and since a couple of weeks chased the Pleco all over the place.
This Monday I bought another temperately tank for the Pleco because I think he is not eating well and so afraid for the other fish (he's also afraid for the goldfish).
The odd thing is that the Pleco haven't grew an inch since January and the Ancistrus has became 4 times his sizes since 3 months! (he was 2 cm. when I got him).

The Pleco is now in a tank with many hiding places (lots of wood and rocks) and I've turned the temperature up to 27 degrees. The other tank is about 24/25 degrees. The goldfish are veiltail (if you know what I mean) so they like warmer temperature than the common goldfish.
I also got a thing for extra oxygen and movement of the water. He hasn't been eating anything I give him, but I reckon he's still in shock from moving from one tank to the other.

Well, that's the story of the fish . I want to keep both off them and got really interested into (all) catfish, so here I am

Ow, I also have a dog (mix Sheppard from Greece) but his behaviour is much more obvious than the fish

Greetings,
Esther

[MatsP]

Welcome to Planet Catfish.

It's hard to figure out what the fish is from your description. We'd really need a photo. If it's 4cm in size and not growing, it's either something that grows very slowly, or it's (more or less) fully grown at this time. Unfortunately, lots of different fish sort of match this - and it clearly isn't

Hypostomus plecostomus

.

--
Mats

[Richard B]

Welcome to PC

[Jools]

Welcome and have a look at

Otocinclus

and also a look at the sticky "read me first" in the "what is my catfish" topic under the hong kong pleco text.

Jools

[Bas Pels]

Welcome

If I may say so, keeping 4 goldfishes in a 240 liter tank - that better than 99 % of the people do (and I think I'm being conservative). So I won't laugh

[Esther]

Thanks people,

The last week I have searched you're database for the two fish. One (the orange yellow one) is certainly a Ancistrus but I don't know what kind. I will put the (very bad) photo's on the other forum. I haven't got any pictures from the other one but he was in a tank in the pet store with the same looking fish only they were much, much bigger. It's dark gray with light brown spots on his body (not dots but more like a tiger). It looks exactly like the first photo in you're Cat-eLog under

Hypostomus Latifrons

.

[MatsP]

May I suggest that your fish is probably

Panaque maccus

aka "Clown pleco" (not sure what it may be called in Dutch, however).

There is a great chance that your Ancistrus is the albino variant of

Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus

.

--
Mats

[Esther]

Hey Mats,

The Panaque maccus looks just like him and it would explain why he's so little. It's also called Clown pleco in Dutch .

The other one is indeed most likely an Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus but the albino variant on the pictures are not the same colour because mine is bright yellow/orange and hasn't got red eyes. And do you know when the males are developing there eh bristles? Because he has got some very small bristles on the nose. And you know what I saw yesterday, he has also got strange looking bristles on the side of his face. When I fed the goldfish he also appear and put the bristles on the site out like a dragon towards the other fish. Well, the goldfish aren't too bright and very plump so they ignore him hehe.

[Bas Pels]

As you noticed, Ancistrus are able to pull out some spines on top of their gills. These are very firm, and used to defend themselves.

Netting Ancistrus out of a tank, they almost always get stuck with them, but after a little while the loosen up (so, if I need to net Ancistrus I make certain I have a spare net, to allow any Ancistrus to free itself)

The bristles on the side of the head - and on top of it - are the real bristles (but I would not know how to name them in Dutch, we call Ancistrus antennemeerval - antennae catfish) which are weak

Almost all female 'ordinary' Ancistrus are without bristles, but this is more likely due to domestication/ selection than normal for Ancistrus

A cf Cirrhosus start growing the bristles between 6 and 9 cm, the above referred spined start much earlies, well before 4 cm

[MatsP]

If it's got black eyes, it's either the "super red" variant of the common one or the

Ancistrus sp(4)

"false L144".

Clown plecos do grow a bit bigger than 4cm, but they are pretty slow growing. Having plenty of wood in the tank will help them grow - they are wood-eaters.

--
Mats

[corybrummie2010]

Hi! Esther,welcome to planetcatfish
I think you shouldn`t feel ashamed of keeping fancy goldfish,as i`m sure most people in this forum have kept goldfish before keeping tropical fish.

[Birger]

I think you shouldn`t feel ashamed of keeping fancy goldfish,as i`m sure most people in this forum have kept goldfish before keeping tropical fish

As a matter of fact there is a recent quick little crash course on the intricacies of keeping fancy goldfish here, go to Deb's post
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =2&t=30497

Birger

[Esther]

Thanks So the veiltail goldfish are callled fancy goldfish in English? They are doing great together but then again they have got a large tank for four goldfish and one Ancistrus (oh and almost forgot, one apple snail).
However, I can't give the Ancistrus an algae wafer because the goldfish go crazy and they don't stop searching for it. Even when the lights are out or when I give them something else they really like. They wreck the place for an algae wafer.

I've red that the Panaque maccus will grow to 10 cm. witch is small for an Pleco. However, he's really enjoying the peace and quiet in his new tank. He 's got lots of wood and rocks (I made a cave). This morning I noticed that he has been eating for the first time this week and he's resting on an other spot (also for the first time). On a Dutch forum they suggested that I give him a little piece of frozen chicken fillet.

But thanks again for the advice, it's very interesting to read al the information about catfish.

[Bas Pels]

On a Dutch forum they suggested that I give him a little piece of frozen chicken fillet.

please ignore this advice

Panaque are woord eating pleco, and in nature thay eat only wood - together with any bacterium growing on it

Chicken contains far too much protein - and I think also too much fat

[MatsP]

On a Dutch forum they suggested that I give him a little piece of frozen chicken fillet.

please ignore this advice

Panaque are woord eating pl*co, and in nature thay eat only wood - together with any bacterium growing on it

Chicken contains far too much protein - and I think also too much fat

I absolutely agree with Bas here. A bit of fresh vegetable, such as sweet potato, courgette or similar would be ideal.

Have a look at the article on feeding plecos - link on the right of this post.

--
Mats

[DutchFry]

Hi Esther and welcome to PC!

Katwijk is a nice town and it's just around the corner from where I live!

You can try feeding your Ancistrus courgette. just stick a tea spoon through a nice piece of courgette so it sinks and maybe then the Ancistrus can eat in peace without too much interference of the goldfishes. I would throw the courgette in just before lights out.

[Esther]

I only give them vegetables or algae wafers but I noticed that they prefer wood (especially the pleco).

@ DutchFry: Wassenaar is indeed a few miles away. I work in The Hague so I drive through it almost on a daily basis .