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Hello!

I've bought this fish as Peckoltia sp. several years ago (beginning aquarist ), but now I really would like to know what species (or L) they are or even if they really are Peckoltias. I've got two of them (in seperate tanks), so maybe it would even be possible to breed.

This is a picture of one of them.



It is not very clear, but they are quite shy...

Could someone help me and indentify this little darlings? They are about 8 cm in lenght I guess.

Thanks already![/img]

Panaque maccus or P.sp.aff.maccus

So no Peckoltia at all?

Thanks!!!

yup, looks like a maccus.

I'm curious what you payed for this fish, because P. maccus is one of the cheapest L-numbers...

Hi Rense! Glad to see you here!

Well I think that I've paid them less than 8 euro three years ago.

I also spoke with Mars (aquaforum) because she has a maccus herself.

The conclusion is that I'm still doubting: they don't have such long-stretched tail ends and they don't eat wood. I always thougth they were Peckoltia's and in my book they mentioned that no wood was needed. So one of them has no wood in the aquarium and the other has only mopani. They both do very well, so it appears they don't really need wood for their digestion.

Yesterday, I saw some Peckoltia vittata's in my local lfs. It was a very diverse group, so I'm not sure the nomenclature was correct. Anyway, some of them resembled very well to my fish.

I think I'll just have to be patient an try to get some more pictures to post them here.

Thanks already!

or something very closely related is certainly what you've got. They will eat wood, but it may he hard to judge the amount of the wood that gets eaten if you've got anything much bigger than match-sticks in the tank, especially if you also feed the fish with other foods, such as algae wafers or other sinking food, because just like me, these fish like "tasty food", whether it's the right diet or not... So I eat too much pizza, and I'm sure my Panaque Maccus are eating too much of the Tetra Bits and not enough wood... This is a common problem with feeding multiple fish in the same tank...

The translation of Panaque Maccus into Peckoltia Vittata is probably one of "reverse translation problems". Panaque Maccus's common name is Clown Pleco, but some other fish are also occasionally sold as "Clown Pleco". When looking up Clown Pleco in some literature, you may well find Peckoltia Vittata, as it's often also sold as "Clown Pleco".

Unless the fish is a fish that is very unique and/or commonly known by it's latin name, shop labels are quite often wrong... This doesn't make life easier for us that keep the fish, but sometimes it means that you can get some different fish by looking at ones that have are common, as there are several fish that will come as "by-catch" with for instance Panaque Maccus.

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Mats