PlanetCatfish.com

Hi,

Please confirm or correct me on ID and sex of these L129, Hypancistrus Debilittera.

Fish 1, male




Fish 2, male




Fish 3, female




Fish 4, female




Fish 5, unsure but think female




Feel free to comment on the fish, all help is welcome. They are a bit skinny, have to give them some tlc and good feeding.
Thanks in advance

No expert here, but it sure looks like some of the ones I have. Nice looking fish. I'll let someone else confirm the ID though.

I'd say they are L129, and you definitely have a couple of males, but I wouldn't bet much money on the "females" being females. They look a bit skinny, so you need to feed them up a bit before you can be certain.

--
Mats

Very nice, I would "Guess" fish 5 is definately female (but then again I am terrible at sexing) but then looking at what Mats said, they do look skinny, so anything is possible. If you play the pure numbers game, the probability of all males is 6.25%.


I am looking to pick up a new group of these here in 2 weeks from tomorrow. Hope mine have as nice of colors.

Thanks. I tried to select them on sex by looking at my L270 pair. Mostly by headshape because I find it difficult to sex by bodyshape because as you say (and I could see) these fish (and most other fish) are not in breeding condition when buying. These were even skinny so hardly any nice rounded belly's to detect They are WC by the way.

I think they look pretty nice too Looking at the cat-e-log pictures there are some fish that have different patterns. Are these juveniles? Some of the pictures look like mine.

They don't like the dry tabletfood but did eat the frozen bloodworms last night Sadly my LFS didn't have any live worms... Next week maybe. I hope they pull trough and feel happy in my tanks.

I have my go to pleco guy picking me out two pairs from his shipment of 30. I think the price is right too for wildcaughts pairs (I am paying $40 US for 4 fish at 2-2.5")

The variation in pattern and color is a per fish thing. I had one that looked very similar to the aqualog book's all black with very very faint bars, it bred with the male that had the most stripes, so the fry where REALLY dark with BRIGHT bars.. I am hoping for the best with mine and hope yours breed for you in no time.
As far as food. Mine always used to eat lettuce, algae wafers, massivore pellets, carnivore catfish pellets, earthworm and brine shrimp flakes, along with brine shrimp and blood worms (live and frozen).


Good Luck with them and I will post pictures once mine come in.


-Nate

Hi Nate,

Thanks for your reply. I'll be looking forward to seeing pictures of your fish
Mine will stay in quarantain for a wile untill I see they are eating well and putting on weight. I can also keep an eye on them better for illness or anything else.

Greets

As far as I can see they are doing fine. I'm not disturbing them because they were quite stressed.
They are eating well, only frozen foods. The dry pellets they won't eat. There feaces are nice and brown so I think they have no worms, because they were so thin.

Fingers crossed but looking good.

Congratulations on your new fish. Nobody else has mentioned it, so it may just be my tired eyes. However, I don't think you got L129. Head shape, pattern, and amount of odontode growth are all more similar to L340. I know that there was recently quite a few that came into the US, but don't really know about the rest of the world. Compare pics and let us know what you think.

Larry

I agree with Larry, .

Janne

Oh bother

I've looked at both the cat-e-logs for L129 and L340 but I can't tell wich I have got right now. As I read right L129 has larger eyes than L340. But my fish are very skinny and I find the eyes on the pictures look sunken so I don't know how big the eyes really are. Or what the bodymass will be when they have put on some weight.
The stripes on the L129 in the cat-e-log are confusing for me. The difference is to big. Mine look like the ones with the thinner stripe pattern rather than the ones having just a few stripes. L340 stripe pattern seem to flow more..... I don't know how to explain what I mean

When they come out of quarantine I'll make some new pictures. Hope you will look again for me.
Not disrespecting your answer Janne Just what to know for sure, as the fish are in better health.

pleco_breeder wrote:Congratulations on your new fish. Nobody else has mentioned it, so it may just be my tired eyes. However, I don't think you got L129. Head shape, pattern, and amount of odontode growth are all more similar to L340. I know that there was recently quite a few that came into the US, but don't really know about the rest of the world. Compare pics and let us know what you think.

Larry

I am pretty sure you are correct, as my 129 males are nowhere near as colorful as the above photos. I vote for 340

Oh bother

don't feel bad jac, after following your thread I am now unsure that my L270 is indeed a L270.

Hi,

Congratulations on your new fish.

It is very difficult to distinguish striped Hypancistren without having to know the locality.
If one wishes to differentiate L129 and L340, one should look at the number of teeth. L129 has more than L340. Pro maxillary L340 has 5 or 6, L129 has 9 to 12. Pro mandibular L340 hat 5 or 6, L129 has 6 to 9.

Cheers
Elko

L-ko wrote:Hi,

Congratulations on your new fish.

It is very difficult to distinguish striped Hypancistren without having to know the locality.
If one wishes to differentiate L129 and L340, one should look at the number of teeth. L129 has more than L340. Pro maxillary L340 has 5 or 6, L129 has 9 to 12. Pro mandibular L340 hat 5 or 6, L129 has 6 to 9.

Cheers
Elko

Promaxillary and promandibular I am unfamiliar with. Do you mean premaxillary (upper jaw) and dentary (lower jaw)?

In the description for H. debilittera, there are 4-6 teeth in the dentary and 11-14 in the premaxillary.

Thanks for the reply's.
I'll try and catch one this afternoon and try and make a picture of the mouth. Maybe this will help to find out what they are.

Here are some new pictures from today, a week after I bought them. I really didn't what to catch them again, it gives so much stress to the fish..... In a weeks time I'll have to catch them because they will come out of quarantine and settle into one of my bigger tanks. I'll try and make pictures of the teeth then.





It's not that I'm sad to have the wrong fish, I find these beautiful and cute little guys But if I'm buying something that is labled L129 I expect to have bought L129 and not probably L340 But still, they come from the same river and are quite simular....

Hi,

Suckermouth wrote:Promaxillary and promandibular I am unfamiliar with. Do you mean premaxillary (upper jaw) and dentary (lower jaw)?

Yes. Okay.

Suckermouth wrote: In the description for H. debilittera, there are 4-6 teeth in the dentary and 11-14 in the premaxillary.

Oh, I should update my database.
I looked also in "Welsatlas" (Catfish Atlas) by Seidel/Evers. They wrote: L340 has 5 or 6 per premaxillary and 2 to 6 per dentary.

In summary I think L340 had significantly fewer teeth than L129.

Cheers
Elko

But still, they come from the same river and are quite simular....

2 different rivers.

Janne

L-ko wrote:I looked also in "Welsatlas" (Catfish Atlas) by Seidel/Evers. They wrote: L340 has 5 or 6 per premaxillary and 2 to 6 per dentary.

In summary I think L340 had significantly fewer teeth than L129.

Awesome, now I know how to tell these apart. Thanks!

Janne wrote:

But still, they come from the same river and are quite simular....

2 different rivers.

Janne

And I'm wrong again I thought I read that they came from the same river but from two different side's..... Maybe I'm just tired, reading the right things the wrong way Sorry...

Hi,

you can also tell these two L-Numbers apart based on headshape.
I concede, however, that it is much easier once you actually had both.
See, for comparison, my explanations here:
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 17&t=26449

This way, you can skip counting millimeter-long teeth..

Cheers, Sandor

Janne wrote:

But still, they come from the same river and are quite simular....

2 different rivers.

Janne

To be precise, they come from two different tributaries of the Rio Orinoco, and as far as I understand, the rivers are on opposite side of the Rio Orinoco, but not very far apart along the Orinoco. I could be wrong.

--
Mats

Both rivers Rio Bita and Rio Tomo flow from west to east into Rio Orinoco on the Colombia side, between these 2 rivers mouth is ~10-15 km and they have no conection with each other except through Orinoco.

Janne

Hi all,

I did some more reading this morning with the search option on this forum. I read the tread you mention @borbi, it was very interresting. As I see more and more L129/L340 I do think now I have got the L340. Mostly bases on the headshape as I compare mine with the pictures shown of other fish.

I tried to make some pictures of the mouth but my camera is not made for such close up pictures so this is all I could do. I don't think you can see any thing regarding the teeth...



I also made some more pictures of the male I caught.







Thanks Mats and Janne for explaining the rivers they come from

Hope we can come to a deffinate conclusion on what my fish are.

If it were me I would be very happy to get a good deal such as this. L340 is usually more expensive than L129, and for good reason. My male 129s are all drab now-you can barely tell that they ever had lines at all. Either way your new purchases are absolutely stunning!

Thanks
So you also think they are deffinatly L340?

Larry wrote:However, I don't think you got L129. Head shape, pattern, and amount of odontode growth are all more similar to L340.

Janne wrote:I agree with Larry, Hypancistrus sp(l340).

dconnors wrote:I am pretty sure you are correct, as my 129 males are nowhere near as colorful as the above photos. I vote for 340.

Sandor wrote:http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 17&t=26449

Janne

Thanks to all who have taken the time to look at my new fish and help me understand the difference. I've learned something new again

The fish have grown well and doing good. I'm having my first spawn of these little fish right now Found them together this morning

Here a picture of what they look like now.