PlanetCatfish.com

Thanks for that. Looks like we have an ID for my fish...

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Mats

Lovely pics... and thanks for posting some pictures.

Good luck breeding them Matt

No problem Saul, don't mind sharing pics when i have time. these aren't really hard to spawn the trick is keeping the babies from dying off. The are highly succeptable to bacteria, and from what i have read most black water fry are.

Adult L88.

L88 juvenile 28 mm few dots.

L88 juvenile 40 mm no dots at all.

L338 youngster/half adult estimate the TL size ~7-8 cm.


I'm not so good at Ancistrus species because they are so dam hard to tell apart, I think that fully adult L338 will have lost all their spots but when I never have had any I can't be sure, compare the tail fin with yours. That I know is that L88 is a quite special species where the babys and juveniles shows similar characters as A. dolichopterus and a few others except it's a brown species.

Janne

So Janne, what you are saying is that mjlfish's Ancistrus isn't L088, since it retains the band on the caudal (as do mine, as far as I can see so far) - which would indicate L338 (you wrote 388, but that's a Hypostomus)...

I love Ancistrus, but their ID is only a little bit less difficult than the Loricarinae...

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Mats

I change to the correct L-number.

Yes, if mjlfish confirm that his juveniles not looked like the pictures of the L88 juveniles above I would state that both your species is L338.

L88 have never small and many dots in any stage like mjlfish pictures shows above of youngsters.

Janne

Wow, who said Id'ing plecos was easy? It's weird because the fish I have also exhibit alot of the 183 characteristics. And like your pic of the youngster on the rock, when on a dark substrate mine also turn black. The only real difference I can see is the tail. Mine is slightly turned in and yours looks a little more rounded. And of course the spots on the pectoral fins, looks like my adults don't have that so I would have to say that 338 is the right call.

Ingo Seidel looked at my pictures and said "L338" (well, the exact words was "I know this species, it's Ancistrus from Guama", and then had to look up the L-number in his L-number book).

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Mats

And I live a couple of hundred meters from this river ;)

Janne