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I'm pretty much a newbie but these look to me like female and male. Am I wrong?




Thanks,
Ramon

Hi Ramon,
I think you are right and have a pair. These are what I call L333. Lately I have been receiving a more black and white fish as L333 while my originals look like yours and I could use a few more like yours. I think I may have all females of this variety but when I order I never know whether they will be these or the black and whites. I lost some of my original brown and tan L333 which has left me short. Only a piece of good luck will save me from having all females but they all seem plump to me.

Seems to be, yes.

Ramon,
I have been breeding the L333 for over a year now. Different pairs from different sources....and at different ages.
I am not as sure you have a pair as some of the other posters believe.
One of my best females would pass for a male if pulled out and compared to a younger male.

Behavior will tell you a lot.

Kevin

Hi Kevin,
You are quite correct. Sexing the small plecos is problematic. It involves a lot of guessing until you are counting the fry. That is one of the reasons I hate to give up hope with my "traditional" looking L333. They are not unlike discus and angels in this respect. Again with these fish behavior is every bit if not more important than apparent sex. Heck, even they sometimes apparently can't tell each other apart.
What do you think of all the more black and white fish being sold as L333 lately? I'm thinking they are something other than the type of L333 we are discussing in this thead. I would be very surprised if they could or would freely interbreed. I would not be surprised if they could breed with L66 if they end up reaching the same size. I respect your POV is why I ask.

The first one is close to 5", if not more, and the other one over 4". Does that help?

Mine might grow that big but they are only close to 4 inches TL and I'm thinking that is about normal from memory while L66 regularly gets over 5.5 TL
It's such a problem buying sight unseen as I have done so much. I never know what to expect when I unpack them.
I even have one L173 sent as either L66 or L333. Cool fish for the price but can't do much with one and I'm unwilling to pay the asking price for more. I have to have a breakthrough with at least one species out of about 8 breeding before I get many more species. I am still early into the pleco breeding projects. So I am trying to be patient.

i had the same problem when i set up my breeding tank with 10 L333's, at the time i thought i had 6 felame's and 4 male's, but now im not so sure. They first Bred in october and within 2 day's i had lost 2 female's due to a screw up with a 802 powerhead , they then had 2 more spawn's at christmas but nothing since. I picked up another pretty big female this week so hopefully she will get going soon.

Kev

Kev,

If you need another female, I have one sitting around doing nothing as it were.

You can have her for free. Bit of a trek for you, but she is mature and gravid.

Thank's racoll that's a nice offer, i'll see what i can do about getting her, and when i have a few more babie's i'll sort you out. Are you going to the catfish convention this month?? im not far from there.

Cheer's mate.

Kev

I mispoke when I said I had a L173. I is a L316.
My L333 are looking and acting like something is up and my black and white versions of L333 are starting to change their color towards that of the normal ones. These had come in at sizes well under 2 inches overall.

Kev, I'm not so sure she is an L333 anymore

Perhaps an L401?

Have a look at this thread.

Larry, how does mine compare to yours?

Hi Racoll,
I see you have both the brown and tan and black and white L333. My first group of L333 that could breed if they wanted to look just like your brown and tan fish.
Now, my black and white fish seem to be slowly changing to be more like the brown and tan's as they grow. The black and white L333 came in very small, 1-1/2 to no more than 2 inches TL.
I did not realize there were others that could be so easily confused with brown/tan L333 but I guess I should not be surprised. The Hyancistrus genus could be a field day for either the lumper or splitter schools of taxonomy.
I just took a bunch of pretty good photos of my fish but I haven't mastered sharing them on the forum. I can e-mail them. Would you consider helping me out by letting me send a couple to you directly and then post them on this thread? I do have a good photo of one of my pairs that I think shows the differences in sex clearly. My females are very ripe and the males are aquiring some imoressive battle scars. I think I have 2 or 3 pairs out of six fish. Pretty lucky, for a change. I have 11 female L260 as far as I can tell but that's another story.

she look's a close match to the fella on the left of this pic:-


Kev

Hi Friends,
The fish on the left of Kevin's photo is the same type as my breeding size group of six L333 are but their tank doesn't sparkle like yours. Mine is decidedly more organic. (read: more crud)

I'll just have to wait and see. But I bought 6 more L333 fry, just in case Now, I just have to wait for them to grow...

Thank's racoll that's a nice offer, i'll see what i can do about getting her, and when i have a few more babie's i'll sort you out. Are you going to the catfish convention this month?? im not far from there.

Sadly not going to the convention. I've never been to one, so maybe next year.

Well if you do want her, and you're in the area, then you know where she is.......

thank's mate, i might be picking up my brother from heathrow in a few week's so mabey then? i'll keep u posted.
thanks again

Kev

Has anyone experienced that these fish will change color?
I bought 3 wild 4" adults and they came in very yellowish but now are
a stark black and white as the photo above. Maybe what they are eating
makes a difference? Any thoughts on this?

it's weird Jackster, i seen a few caught out of the Xingu and they came out like your's "gold" . Mabey its the mineral's in the water or something like that. This one was caught only a few hour's before:-


Kev

Here are some photos of my L333. They were originally more brown and tan but are now more like Kev's black and White L333.



One more photo, next post.

Last picture for this reply post. I think the sexes are fairly obvious. The larger male has some battle scars and the female is very broad between the pectoral fins.

Wow, Some nice looking fish in this thread guys
Shaun

Thank you,
I have two males and four females in this tank but no spawns yet.
I have another group with my Heckels but they are still half grown. This latter batch came in very crisply marked in black and white and are beginning to take on the darker shade of those in the photos.

here's some of mine bought in 2005 and then with young in 2006






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Your L333 babies just suck.
Congratulations says the green eyed apistomaster.
Very Cool and nice photos.
Mine seem so close at times but they are not set up in private accomodations nor have they been given any synthetic rainy seasons or other tricks of the trade.

thanks
yes indeed they do suck, i've often seen them sucking on the odd algae wafer & such like

To be honest with you i didn't do anything in particular to encourage them to breed. They just took it upon themselves to surprise me.They were sharing a 55gal tank with 5 L134 at the time too. Guess i was just lucky

Perhaps i should point out that i was in a relationship at the time with a lovely lady called Lisa who has since left me. Maybe she was a lucky charm

Here's hoping i have success this year with both my fish & my finding another lady luck