Did you know fantastic help is an anagram of Planet Catfish? This forum is for those of you with pictures of your catfish who are looking for help identifying them. There are many here to help and a firm ID is the first step towards keeping your catfish in the best conditions.
Hi Everyone,
I was at my LFS today, and found a fish that they had labeled as a "Snowball". These guys have been on the importers list for ages, but this is the first time that I have actually seen one. I couldn't get a pic of its teeth, but I did get a brief look, they looked like Hypancistrus teeth to me. This one was around 6-7cm. Here's a pic...
CatBrat,
There is a Hypancistrus referred to as "Snowball", currently assigned L102. Check the cat-elog and see that the fish you've pictured is not it. You need that band on the dorsal and caudal.
I was originally prompted to respond to your post because I am always at a loss to explain the big, beautiful white spots on these fish labelled "inspector". I have and breed something I'm pretty sure is inspector and none of them look as nice as the picture you post and some others that I've seen. I know they're all different and location can "taint" a pattern, but some of what I believe to be H. inspector even have irregular banding on their tails! (see the cat-elog; particularly Shane's pic #4 of 10).
Do you know where they are exported from...Colombia or Brasil? It looks like L201 to me (it has big eyes) but even small species of L102 can be hard to tell apart sometimes.
It can also be LDA33 Baryancistrus sp so if you could get a picture of the mouth would be very helpful.
Janne
Last edited by Janne on 21 Aug 2005, 20:43, edited 1 time in total.
I can see if the dorsal fin and the adipose are joined together, if it is, this can be a Baryancistrus sp, possibly LDA33 if not it is likely to be L368!
It's almost clear on the picture that Dorsal and Adipose fins are NOT joined together. So, probably L368 then... ?
I saw some pretty similar ones on a shop yesterday. I didn't look very closely, just thought that they were similar to the ones on the picture I'd seen previously. Wasn't labebeled very clearly: "Snowball pleco" and a price of about 20 pounds or so, IIRC.
However, in the Cat-eLog this image which is supposed to be LDA33 doesn't have a connected dorsal and adipose fin either. [They are CLOSE, but not connected, as far as I can see].
[There are some other pictures in the same cat-elog page, but they are either by the same photographer, presumably the same specie if not the same fish, or do not clearly show the dorsal/adipose fin]
Is the cat-elog wrong, or Yann wrong? Or have I misunderstood something important?
--
Mats
The dorsal fins in Baryancistrus are like this
joining the body and not the adipose...sorry...
so actually it cannot be seen well and that picture if it is either genus!!