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I have recently bought some gibbiceps from LFS and wanted to know if there is a specific way of telling the difference between these guys and a common pleco. I have searched but I dont think I am very good at finding things on the net... sorry....

thank you...

One problem with telling a and "Common pleco" is that the G. gibbiceps is sometimes sold under this name, and sometimes, as "Sailfin pleco" or "Gibby".

Compare that to , which has only slightly different pattern - this is the "new proper" common...

The "old proper" common is a and closely relates species (such as ). They are fairly rare in the trade now, but that's where the original name of "pleco" comes from.

The Gibby should have slightly larger dorsal fin, but without two fish next to each other, it can be hard to tell the difference.

It also doesn't make a whole lot of difference - they are very similar in behaviour, feeding and ultimate size (large!).

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Mats

Thanks for that Mats.... I was wondering as I have what I bought a few months ago as a common pl*co and when I posted pics on one of my forums everyone said nice gibby... and I was confused... and then when I looked at the ones I bought today as gibbys (from same shop) although only 5cm at moment I couldnt see much difference... I read somewhere that the gibby dorsal fin has more spines something like 13 compared to 9 or something like that....
is this myth or fact...

Most pleco species have 7 rays in the dorsal fin, Glyptoperichthys and Liposarcus have 11 or something like that, but unfortunately, Glyptoperichthys and Liposarcus both have a higher count (I think this is one reason they recently were grouped together into Pterogoplichthys, which also have a higher number of dorsal rays).

You can tell a Hypostomus apart from the above genera by counting dorsal rays, but that's about it. [And if you are completely unable to SEE the difference, you could possibly tell the difference between a small and by counting the dorsal rays - but casual viewing seems a much easier means of telling those two apart...]

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Mats

Thank you very much for your time.... I will now wait until they get a bit bigger and compare with my other larger one... maybe then I will be able to tell...

Thanks