PlanetCatfish.com

I'm no damn good at any loricariids except Otocinclus, so I thought I'd run this one by you guys - is this an Ancistrus sp . 3? A male?
It's about 4 cm long (TL), has fairly pronounced odontodes, but no "beard". It's more than doubled in size in four months.

http://www.zoopet.com/medlemsbilder/dat ... edited.jpg
http://www.zoopet.com/medlemsbilder/dat ... edited.jpg
http://www.zoopet.com/medlemsbilder/dat ... edited.JPG

(I know the images aren't very good - I've lent my real camera to a friend, so I had to use my "holiday" camera, a small point&shoot.)

is this an Ancistrus sp . 3?

Yup

Looks just like my babies...

The dark colour will lighten a bit as it gets older/bigger, and the light spots will go a bit darker.

It's hard to say whether it's a male or female at this stage. If you'd push me on a choice, I'd probably go for female, but that's just a 60% guess. They still have impressive "cheek"(gill-cover?) odontodes.

My adult male (still growing), had decent bristles at about 5cm TL, but I understand that some mature smaller than others, so your's may well need to grow a bit more.

Keep it well supplied with courgette (Zucchini) [can't remember what it's called in Swedish], and an algae wafer now and again, and it should get growing quite well.

--
Mats

Silurus, MatsP: thanks, I was fairly certain it was sp3, but it's always nice to get confirmation. What made me uncertain about the ID was the high-contrast coloration, the yellow seam on the dorsal fin, and the high price - according to the buyer they were sold for $8 each, quite a lot for a 2 cm ancistrus!

Mike_Noren wrote:Silurus, MatsP: thanks, I was fairly certain it was sp3, but it's always nice to get confirmation. What made me uncertain about the ID was the high-contrast coloration, the yellow seam on the dorsal fin, and the high price - according to the buyer they were sold for $8 each, quite a lot for a 2 cm ancistrus!

It's certainly a fairly high price. The colouration is consistant with my "babies", and the parents look a little bit less contrasty.

--
Mats

Hi, I am just wondering. How is the A. sp(3) different from the Ancistrus temminckii?
Planet catfish don't any pics here, but this other site http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/Species ... m?id=50312 have a picture that looks exactly like the parent while the fry are just like the picture mentioned here.
Here's a pic of my Juvie
I am just wondering if it's a A. Sp(3) or an A. temminckii?

Ancistrus temminckii is a name that is often used for the common Ancistrus [sp. (3)] in the trade. That may have been correct in the past, but not any more.

This and this should explain things.

Good question. I have looked at fishbase.org on this entry (interestingly, we do have a fair number of Johnny Jensen photos on the web-site, but not the one of A. Temminckii.)

We can almost certainly say that your juvie is A. sp3.

However, do we for sure know that the Johnny Jensen photo on fishbase.org is actually of a Ancistrus Temminckii? I can't say for sure, I haven't got even NEARLY enough knowledge. Jools, Shane, Yann, Silurus, anyone else?

If the fishbase.org picture is a genuine A. Temminckii, then I'd be inclined to say that the aquarium bred Ancistrus sp(3) are also A. Temminckii, or at least a breed that is based mainly on this[1].


[1]there is some people who think the tank-bred variety of "Common Bristlenose" are a hybrid.

--
Mats

For those concerned, I think Silurus answer is a lot better than mine... Although, the links Silurus gives aren't disagreeing with my answer...

--
Mats

$8 for a ancistrus is not dear i paid £12.50 each for my gold marble bristlenoses thats around $25 each . tho i did buy um in 2000 and they was only discovered in 99 lol .

ack

MatsP wrote:We can almost certainly say that your juvie is A. sp3.

Yep. It's pretty much identical to my fish.

However, do we for sure know that the Johnny Jensen photo on fishbase.org is actually of a Ancistrus Temminckii?

I'm a big fan of fishbase, but I do know that photos are not always checked by an expert before being added to the database. I have personally reported half a dozen misidentified photos in fishbase, and those were often fish much easier to ID than Ancistrus.

[1]there is some people who think the tank-bred variety of "Common Bristlenose" are a hybrid.

Is sp3 the "common bristlenose"? I thought "dolichopterus", the mottled-gray/brown one, was the most common?
As for being a hybrid... All sp3's I've seen have had the spots in the anterior end gradually turning into a complete or almost complete transverse yellow band just anterior to the caudal fin, and staggered lines in the dorsal and caudal fin. The same pattern is seen in the fish Shane ID's as Ancistrus triradiatus (even the albinos) in the link Silurus posted.

Regardless of whether A. triradiatus is a valid species or not, I think these fish have an unusually invariable patterning for a hybrid. Genetics works in mysterious ways of course, but I'd expect a multiple-origin hybrid strain to show more variation. But that's just my personal gut instinct, of course.

Mike_Noren wrote:

MatsP wrote:We can almost certainly say that your juvie is A. sp3.

Yep. It's pretty much identical to my fish.

However, do we for sure know that the Johnny Jensen photo on fishbase.org is actually of a Ancistrus Temminckii?

I'm a big fan of fishbase, but I do know that photos are not always checked by an expert before being added to the database. I have personally reported half a dozen misidentified photos in fishbase, and those were often fish much easier to ID than Ancistrus.

So with that said, I think we can clearly say that the fish in fishbase is Ancistrus sp(3), but not necesarily A. Temminckii.

[1]there is some people who think the tank-bred variety of "Common Bristlenose" are a hybrid.

Is sp3 the "common bristlenose"? I thought "dolichopterus", the mottled-gray/brown one, was the most common?
As for being a hybrid... All sp3's I've seen have had the spots in the anterior end gradually turning into a complete or almost complete transverse yellow band just anterior to the caudal fin, and staggered lines in the dorsal and caudal fin. The same pattern is seen in the fish Shane ID's as Ancistrus triradiatus (even the albinos) in the link Silurus posted.

Regardless of whether A. triradiatus is a valid species or not, I think these fish have an unusually invariable patterning for a hybrid. Genetics works in mysterious ways of course, but I'd expect a multiple-origin hybrid strain to show more variation. But that's just my personal gut instinct, of course.

Yeah, well, it's hard to say. I agree, that they are very uniform, which would be an indication on it not being a hybrid. The main basis of the hybrid theory is the fact that many Ancistrus spp are hard to identify, and at the beginning of tank-breeding, it's very likely to have been mixed species. On the other hand, maybe hybrids aren't particularly likely to occur, and less likely to be fertile, so our current range of (almost) all captive-bred "Common Ancistrus" are all one specie.

This specie has been called A. Temminckii, A. Dolichopterus/i] and perhaps other names (including not being called Ancistrus, but Xenocara or something like that).

Suffice to say that until the Ancistrus specie is revised, we will probably not really know what our Ancistrus sp(3) is, or which names are correct and which are not...

--
Mats

I thought "dolichopterus", the mottled-gray/brown one, was the most common?

According to the cat-e-log the L183(starlight) is now refered to as the Ancistrus dolichopterus.

There is a recent thread(a few months ago) where someone goes into more detail on the history of this subject,I just can't find it right now but I know it's there somewhere.

Birger