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I found this little guy and had to take him for a few close up photos. He is just over 2". Any idea what it is? Thanks,
Jim

Great looking one Jim.
based on the red tail I'll say an special L600.

ooooooo!

Hello fishy, come and live with me :happy-wavemulticolor:

Hi!!

Let it grow a bit to see how it will evoluate!!
L273 could be a possibility as well!!
but 2'' is really small!!
Is it tank bred?
Under what name did you bought it?
Cheers
Yann

I was hoping this thread was going to generate a bit of a debate. I then re-read the thread 'Better than L-Nos' and realized that the group is probably burnt out on the classification debate. It would be interesting to see what percentage of the total posts are related to identification. Thanks to several friends I now have DNA samples from 6 different Pseuda species but the processing labs are several months behind.

Saul was correct, this one was from the last spawn of my L600 pair. Being blessed with four successful spawns has allowed me to see well over a thousand fry from the same pair, something not to many people get to do. I would say that 99% look almost identical to the parents but that leaves room for some surprises like this one.

The down side to having so many fry is to watch 'natural selection' and 'survival of the fittest' in action. I will fully admit that part of the issue (a few years ago)was fry density (I posted a request for info but I never did receive tank data from anyone, just helpful suggestions) but I have done tests with low density tanks as well. The one thing I call tell you about Pseudacanthicus leopardus is that until they reach about 2" in length there is almost always 'one too many' in the tank. It seems that higher density fry tanks eliminate the fighting but then fry die due to starvation or are stunted. I have a much better system than when I started but there are still daily losses.

It is little surprises like this that help cure the burnout we all get from time to time.
Jim

Hi!!

It is very interesting to know they come from Pseudacanthicus leopardus.

To start a debat:
Probably would have been assigned a new fancy L number if it had been found in the wild!!
That show that pattern can great evoluate and one species can vary a lot in term of coloration and there is no necessity to assign new L number over and over...because even if it was to help clarify things, it has make it even worst now.
Also it will be more likely that in the end science will described a species and it would have a bunch of L numbers, just showing the variability but in the end representing still one same species.
Of course Aquarist will totally disagree with this and the debate will go over and over because to their sense...there are differences...and for science it fits the variability within species!!

Cheers
Yann

I have seen pictures of similar "wormlike" markings on golden nuggets. However, follow-up pictures of the same fish showed that these markings disappeared and the fish showed the normal coloration when it was older(i.e. dots). I am very sure that this one is not leaving your house, correct? It would be great to have more pictures of him/her in the future to see whether the markings will also change to "normal" as it gets older. Great fish.

This one is not going anywhere that is for sure! It will be interesting to see if it retains the morph. I have some older unique ones from my first group that still have most of their pattern. But as you said they are starting to look more normal.
Thanks,
Jim

Just out of curiosity, do you have pictures of the older ones? It would be great if they retained this pattern, but L600 are still very nice fish (with the only disadvantage that they grow too large for my current tank ).