PlanetCatfish.com

Hello all,
yesterday I found this little fellow in some aquarium store. I know he's not in such a good shape (his eyes are somewhat sunken, and so is his belly), but he was only 10 euro's, so I had to take him home. I thought that I rather give it a try myself than seeing him die slowly in some shabby LFS holding tank. And I've saved pleco's that were in a worse shape than this little guy is, so I'm hopeful...

What I'm trying to figure out is what 'type' of Royal Pleco this could be. The LFS employee told me it's wild-caught, imported from Paraguay - not very helpful, as I haven't found any instance of Paraguayan Royals on-line...
So instead I hope the pro's here could help me further as far as the identity of this fish is concerned.
Hopefully these two pictures are sufficient. The fish is a bit pale due to stress (I took these pics shortly after I released him into my QT tank), but in the store he was not much darker than this. I find his caudal fin (color/markings) quite unusual, but I have to admit I haven't seen that many Royals in real life, so maybe what I find unusual is nothing special for you guys...

Anyways here are the pictures:






Thanks in advance!

Oh, one more thing: any tips to beef up the little fellow quickly?

Looks exactly like the L27 Xingu in DATZ LNummern Sonderheft

despite the problems its a very nice pickup for 10â?¬

Get this catfish some driftwood or bogwood. I've been feeding mine a good diet of
sinking algae wafers and pellets. I've also discovered that mine likes sweet potatoes.
I just feed the sweet potatoes raw but I believe some people boil them slightly.
The fish you have is Panaque nigrolineatus.

I had the same problem with feeding a P. nigrolineatus that was starved. What I did was rubber band washed leaf spinach to stones where leaf itself was on the substrate. The royal skeletonized two to three leaves nightly, and perked right up in a few days. That, in concert with bog wood, should help bring him back. They also enjoy the occasional frozen bloodworm and the like that escape the fishes.

Dave

Thanks for the suggestions and input, guys!!!

As far as his ID: I also have an Panaque (cf.) nigrolineatus L190 which I got at the same size (the mystery fish is about 2" in size), and he never looked quite like the new guy: much darker in color, different tail/pectoral fin markings. Xingu was one of my guesses too, but this one doesn't seem to have reddish fins...
I know it's (virtually) impossible to find out what species it could be without knowing where it was collected, but I hope someone has a very similar-looking fish and can tell me where he got him. It's nice to know what you have swimming around in your tanks...

Take a look at this page. H. N. studies Panaque species.
You will see several variants of each species. Individuals can vary greatly
and I believe that juveniles and adults also have different appearances.

A juvenile of L190, P. nigro. from Columbia/Venezuela.