Ancistrus and "Clowns" (no photo's i'm afraid)

[criffa]

Looks like i've been reading too much old literature concerning new genera etc. but firsts things first. I've had a couple of ancistrus for a while now with no positive ID, but unfortunately no digital camera either. This should be relatively straight forward tho. Jet black ancistrus, no spots. Possible very small amount of gold/orange on the 2 tips of the caudal fin. Bristles small - the two fish are approx 2.5 - 3" long atm (SD). They arrived in a batch of "peppermint" ancistrus with white dots (no, not whitespot!). Any ideas?

Onto the "clowns" - currently have 4 different clowns, all which were labelled as either Peckoltia vittata or P. pulcher, but they all look different enough to be different spp's.
1. Dirty light brown, very slight banding (brown on brown - not obvious). Chunky and spiney in appearance.
2. Mopani wood brown, very thin golden bands, not striking but has a "lyre tail"
3. Light cream and black banded. very defined. eyes seem more protruded.
4. light brown and black banded. prominent cheek spines. banding starts narrow on the face and moves to thicker banding towards the tail.

All of the ones are approx 2" long and i don't believe they are any where near adult size (but difficult to know)

I hope my vague descriptions shed some light and i reall want a digital camera!

Cheers for your time and help

Chris

[magnum4]

Unfortunately Ancistrus species are very difficult to ID even with pictures as the taxonomy is a mess. And the peckoltia show considerable variation within the same species.

So pictures are really a must for what you are asking in both cases, if you want to be sure of species. All i can suggest is that you start looking through the cat-elog.

[criffa]

Thanks. Thought I'd need a camera. Had a look on cat-elog with a bit more clarity on the clowns, but to no avail on the black ancistrus. I'll have to see if i can borrow a camera off someone. Cheers again

Chris