PlanetCatfish.com

I'm very tempted to believe that L173 is a naturally occuring exception within the striped Hypancistrus of Xingu. I believe that sometimes closely related forms interact and crossbreed in the river. I think this is why bigger numbers/colonies of L173 has not been found, just one-offs (at least to my knowledge).

I also believe that L173 can differ in genetics. I suppose two very similar looking L173 can actually contain genes from different strains of striped Hypancistrus, say for example H.zebra x L066 or H.zebra x L399 and so on. If these are bred further in captivity, the variation will reveal itself through extremely variable appearances. If a breeder decides to purebreed a strain into a direction with say more white, the way to do it would be to select parent fish with the most desireable pattern and repeat it for a few generations. I believe this is what happens in Germany and Asia.

As a result, some strains of L173 will be very striking (and perhaps even include that extra bit of H.zebra in the mix to make them even more so), whereas other strains will be less striking due to stronger genes from less striking ancestors. That's my theory anyway, same goes for L236 ;)

Haakon

Ab this just circles back to my earlier post in this thread where I said there really is no scientifically sound answer on species ID for a lot of the B&W hypans from the Xingu.

While I know from my own experience that zebras seem to breed pretty true when one starts with typical stock, this point becomes moot with some of the more unusual fish such as 98, 173, 236 and 250. I have never ever seen a post in which there is a picture of a zebra get responses questioning what it is. Similarly, I have never seen a post anywhere picturing 173/236/250 in which there was no disagreement as to what the fish is. While I would like to see more consistency in the fish as well as there being caught in larger numbers in given locations, I also do not believe either of these things is a prerequisite for determining if they are distinct pure species or not.

In the end it is only the science of genetics which might answer these questions. But due to the time and money needed for such a project, I doubt it will ever be undertaken. Now that Brazil is getting ready to destroy the Xingu ecosystem and wipe out many of these fish in the wild, I fear that it will put the final nail into the ID coffin.

What I can say is I will continue to raise up the fish I pictured in this thread and hopefully have them spawn. From my underside photos it is clear I have fish of both sexes and male fish7 has been caving for several months. I had to break apart his cave to get him out for pics.

You can expect me to post pictures of them again down the line after they grow out more and especially if they spawn and produce fry.

just like to say h will does not supply to glasers and these 173s are deffently not from him as i have 6 iv bought from him 6 months ago.

TwoTankAmin wrote:In the end it is only the science of genetics which might answer these questions. But due to the time and money needed for such a project, I doubt it will ever be undertaken. Now that Brazil is getting ready to destroy the Xingu ecosystem and wipe out many of these fish in the wild, I fear that it will put the final nail into the ID coffin.

There are already a genetic project in Brazil for Hypancistrus in Xingu, but they will have a problem of the fact that all "species" are so close related that it will be impossible to only use genetic to divide a specie... but it will help a little.
For the moment the Belo Monte project is halted once again, we all try to buy time and if not able to stop the project it will be delayed, each time the project are stopped the more time the science will have to finish their work. Then it's another question if the work is good enough in the end...

Janne

Janne wrote:but they will have a problem of the fact that all "species" are so close related that it will be impossible to only use genetic to divide a species

Hi Janne. Is this your opinion, or have some results started to emerge?

I'm not sure I entirely agree with your assessment though. If some of these forms really do have evolutionary independence, then there WILL be a genetic signal. It's just a question of how/if you are able to read it. Mitochondrial DNA data might be too coarse an approach, and one may need to carry out a genome wide SNP scan to tease out the pattern.

racoll wrote:It's just a question of how/if you are able to read it. Mitochondrial DNA data might be too coarse an approach, and one may need to carry out a genome wide SNP scan to tease out the pattern.

My opinion, this is Brazil and they need help but maybe don't want to ask for it.
There are some good researchers and there are many not so good, not sure what the result will be in the end though.

Janne

Hi,

today I visited Aquarium Glaser, and asked them about the "b" in L 173b. So here comes the official version:

They sell typical marked german tank raised L 173 with this L-Number. Only a few per year.
L 173 with an untypical marking, but from the same parents, are offered as L 173b with a lower pricetag. So if you buy L 173b it is possible, that you could get strange looking fish. If L 173 is a kind of a transition form, and this is my opinion, you could get fish looking more like L 399 or L 400 or even L 287. But that means also, that some of the offspring of L 173b will look like real L 173.

L 173b

Great info.
Now we know where those L173b come from.
I guess Chris will have to assess which of those in his group are L173B or L173.
I've no doubts that some fish from his Glaser group definitely resemble the L173 family, however there is one, maybe two that can clearly be questioned.

For example those in the above picture, don't look nothing like L173 to me.

Saul

Great info indeed, for now everybody should know what to do: think twice before buying, for you may end up with an unwanted surprise.

I believe this is L173b, because I got the same kind of fish from Glaser using the label L173b. Up till now, Aquarium Glaser still sell this fish using the same label.








Rajanta
www.bellenz.com

any pictures?

Saul

Please look at the pictures in my web. Go to galleries at www.bellenz.com.







Rajanta
www.bellenz.com

Bellenz wrote:Please look at the pictures in my web. Go to galleries at http://www.bellenz.com.

Rajanta
http://www.bellenz.com

Nice website.
See you again on AQ11

I do not mean to reanimate a dead thread. But I promised to post if these fish ever spawned for me. This evening I spotted a fry in the tank. It had not quite lost all of its yolk sac. The dad was doing some fanning and would not let me see the back of the cave, so I assume he is hiding a few more fry. The lone one was in and out of the cave, the last time blown out by dads fanning.

I know I have serveral females and have 3 fish caved including the dad, so I am hoping this is the start of having several spawns. Optimistically looking ahead, I will be very curious to see how the fry turn out.

I was not able to get pictures when I moved the fish from a 20 gal. long to their current 33 gal. long.

I have to do it again. The first spawn resulted in confirmed free swimmers. I spotted them during maint for the next two weeks and then have not seen a trace of them since. Fast forward.

Last mid Oct. I tripped and broke a hip and have been recovering since. A couple of very nice ladies I know were kind enough to do my tank work at 2 week intervals. On their last visit they spotted the same male on eggs. Despite my neglect of tanks by cutting down the frequency of things, I have been able to do it at a reduced pace. Last weekend as I was cleaning the tank, a dead fry flushed out. During the rest of cleaning I spotted 4 live free swimmers which I pulled to a trap which circulates tank water. So far so good. I did not want to chance losing them since it looks like I lost the first spawn. The spawns seem to be quite small I don't think there could have been more than 7 eggs in either spawn. I consider this a good sign in terms of what the fish are since my experience is Hypans which give the smaller spawn sizes seem to be the more desirable ones in terms of availability and cost.

I am still inclined to believe the variability in appearance belief for 173 and also the 173b designation being created by Glasser to apply to their 173 offspring which are variable enough to make them less than ideal looking specimens. I never felt it was more than their "private" designation. The only way for me to confirm it all is to do what Glaser represents should happen when they say some of the fry from should come out much closer to the ideal look we all want for this fish. That is to produce some fry that actually do. My bet is it will take a whole bunch more fry than 4 for that.

There is no point in pictures as they would be meaningless in terms of species info. If I can keep them alive and grow them out, when they begin to look more interesting, I will get pics for the thread.

Great job. Keep us posted.

p.s we all love baby pics.

Whatever happened? Did you get any fry resembling the "typical" L173?

I mean L236 can often times look drab, but then you get a few specimens that resemble the famous picture of Ingo Seidel.

I have 3 fry which at last spotting were over an inch TL at least. This past year has been a challenge and many fish were lost, including fry due to an inability to do the needed regular maint. on tanks. I only see these fry from on my back under the tank looking up through the bottom glass.

TwoTankAmin wrote:I have 3 fry which at last spotting were over and inch TL at least. This past year has been a challenge and many fish were lost, including fry due to an inability to do the needed regular maint. on tanks. I only see these fry from on my back under the tank looking up through the bottom glass.

Sorry to hear that Chris. I hope things get well soon.

Time to update this old thread.

As part of my move to HMFs, I finally got into the tank for these fish yesterday. I have seen a number of spawns from these fish but have also managed not to see most of them survive. I never wanted to pull apart their tank and never tried pulling spawns.

The net result of yesterday's effort were as follows-

• -> I tried to get pictures. I am lousy with digital cameras and normally rely an shooting a ton and crossing my fingers. The bbater inthe camera was dying near the end and I have not had a chance to see if I got anything useful. If I have anything decent I will post them in this thread.
  
  -> All 7 of the original fish were still there. However, they looked a bit different from their pictures originally posted in this thread.
  
  -> 11 offspring were removed to their own growout tank. They ranged in size from recent free swimmers to an almost 2 inch juvenile. They appeared to be as variable looking as their parents.
  
  ->2 males were caved and refused to come out during the process. One cave for sure had no spawn and the other the male would not let me see one way or the other.

This tank is the one where I am using an unusual set-up for an HMF. Instead of using a single 3 inch thick 20 ppi foam, I am using a 2 inch thickness but placing a foam at each end of the tank (total of 4 inches). One has an over the top return and the other will have its return through the foam and close to the bottom of the tank. Bother are powered with 160 gph pumps with variable flow control. This should give a somewhat circular flow pattern. It is an experimental design and will be my third tank switched over to HMF filtration. Yesterday I installed the first foam and removed one of the two sponged powerheads.

edit: I just checked the camera and there are a few usable pics' I also discovered i can't count. there are 12 not 11 offspring? Pics need to be edited before posting.

2nd edit; It gets more interesting. I just went to move my equipment from the fish space back into the main house for weekend tank maint. I noticed in a bucket was a small puddle in which a very small fry was swimming. It had survived in that chilly puddle for about 19 hours and is now in the tank with its 12 cousins/brothers and sisters.

The pics are not great, but this is the largest offspring (it is in the 2 inch range). I sure hope the striping pattern holds over time.

very nice pattern I hope it holds over time as well. looking foward to growth updates

I wanted to check on the fry i had moved into a 20L growout tank. A number of them were very recent free swimmers and I was afraid they migh be lunch for the big guy. So I pulled the tank apart and was happy to find all the fish present and accounted for. I also managed to grab a couple of snapshots with the digicam. Two of them came out OK.

TwoTankAmin wrote:As I promised a while back, I have taken a number of photos of the 7 fish I got via Glaser in Dec of 2009. I recently had to move them into new, more spacious, digs and used the opportunity to have my brother take pictures for me. There are 26 photos in all for the 7 fish and I felt trying to post them all here was a bit too much. What I have done is created a special gallery where they can be viewed. the pictures are Labeled Fish1, Fish 2 etc ,. and they go in order, if you are interested you can view them here http://twotankamin.smugmug.com/Fish/L-1 ... 2202_Yymvf

The original pictures were shot at a much higher resolution and they have been reduced 75-80% in size. When viewed in their original form the underside shots are amazing.

A always, I welcome all comments on these fish and what they may or may not be.

Your fish is very beautiful

Sorry to hear about your health worries and issues finding accommodation for all the new fry you have discovered. But despite all this you must be doing something right. Best wishes to you.

TY both-

Fortunately most of the health stuff is behind me.

Sometimes in this hobby we work like crazy to get our fish to spawn, other times they go when they feel like and often this happens to be the worst time for us. I have been complaining for some time that my original zebra group doesn't spawn much any more. So of course on top of everything else, I can confirm I spotted a free swimming fry last Sunday. Thank goodness that tank can handle this batch of fry and more if they choose to produce them.

Returning to the overall topic of this thread, these fish have spawned on and off for a while. However the survival rate has been poor. Some of this was due to lack of care. But I have also thought for some time that there is some predation of young happening. I am not sure by whom- older offspring and/or adults. But, the 13 odd fish I pulled were all pretty small save 3 larger ones, including that in the pics above. That leads me to believe I have fish from several different spawns, but the total numbers are too low for many to have made it.

Now you know that they are spawning, re survival rate, it may be worth removing eggs/fry, that's once of course that you've got the fry tank situation sorted.

I got a few new snapshots if the neat looking fish. I do mean snapshots not good photos, but you can still get a good idea of how the fish looks. These guys sure grow slowly. This is the largest offspring and when I go to work cleaning the tank is comes out of hiding and parks itself in that driftwood crevice. So far the lines are not getting wider so it seems to be retaining its basic look. I have a number of smaller fry in the tank but have not checked how they look. many are much smaller and I see no point in disturbing them all to get pictures yet.