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I’m delighted to have gotten these little wild caught lads today, some of them are a little bit rough looking and they came with flukes but they are being treated now and seem to be doing well under the circumstances.

To the question, when reading Ian Fuller’s Identifying Corydoradinae Catfish I realized that there are two potential forms of this species; C. loretoensis and C. cf loretoensis with a mask.

To me it seems that there could be a mix of both among mine, am i right and if so would it be recommended to keep them separately? They all came in the same shipment from Peru.

These are the photographs I managed to get today but I will try to get some more the coming days:






Many thanks,
Melander

You may not have two species here. According to Ian Fuller the eye band fades as the fish get older.

Mark

Thank you for the quick reply Mark!

I am delighted with that, it certainly makes my life easier regarding tank space and it gives me an idea of age (at least in comparison within the group).

Melander

the ones without the mask look like loretoensis, the ones with the mask look like the horizontal striped version of C096:

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/im ... e_id=15427

Thanks Dark.One,

I do see the resemblance to the C.096 but mine does not seems to have the darkened dorsal fin, at least not nearly as much as the photos of the C.096's show. This one however seems to have a paler dorsal fin:
http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/im ... e_id=11897

While writing the above I actually noticed something interesting, I don't know if this stands for all of them as I have a hard time keeping up but it seems to me that the lighter individuals without the "mask" have a slightly concave eye shape while the individuals with the mask have the more common rounded eye:





Something similar to the individual here:

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/im ... ge_id=9628

Perhaps this is due to the "mask" and dark pigment around the eye?

With minor difference like this the photographs must make a major difference. I know myself that sometimes I have been able to see colors in corys while using the flash that simply do not seem to appear without it.

I will try to take some new photographs today if I get the chance.

Andreas

You definitely have 2 different fish IMO and I think you'll find that when they colour up and settle in you will have the C096 with horizontal broken lines, and loretoensis. On the C096 you have you can see the dark in the dorsal and the shoulder, it's just not coloured up properly yet.

Ok, it might take awhile before they color up as I just disturbed them and took them out for photographs, it went very fast but still.

As you can see some of them are in quite a state. I don't expect to see any breeding behavior any time soon so they should be ok in the same tank until they have recovered.

Would it be possible to single them out from the photographs below, and is sexing possible at this stage?

Fish 1


Fish 2


Fish 3


Fish 4


Fish 5


Fish 6


Fish 7



Many thanks,

Andreas

Bit early to tell at the moment, though even when small, loretoensis males have very long dorsal fins.
From the pics I would say fish 6 could be the C096, rest look like loretoensis at the moment. Wait until they have settled in and coloured up and we should know for sure what you have.

I will stop bothering them and leave them alone to settle and recover for now.

Sometimes you (I) loose track of whats best for the fish in search for information, like a kid on Christmas day.

Thanks,

Andreas

Hi,

I agree with Steve on the IDs. C. loretoensis and C 96 are coming from the same region of Peru.
We have caught lots of C 96 in Rio Itaya in september and they were also rather pale similar to yours. From other catching locations the black colour in the dorsal is more obvious. In Rio Nanay we have caught hundreds of C. loretoensis. Both rivers flow into the Amazone at Iquitos.

Cheers,

Thank you very much for the valuable information Karsten, I'm taking notes and It feels like it all starts to make sense.

I can now see the difference in the fish quite clearly, it is funny how easy it is when someone points it out to you:)

When the fish has settles down I will try to post an update on how they have colored up, and I will also use an Irish fish forum to see if I can find out if someone else also came home with a C096 among the loretos, it would be a shame for me to keep a single specimen if there are more out there.

Andreas

It was now a couple of weeks since I bought the fish and they seem to do very well. The flukes are gone and the fins are growing back. Two individuals have however developed some sort of mucus like growths on the underside of their bodies.

Behaviour wise I cannot see much of a difference between the individuals, all of them seems very calm compared to other Corydoras I have kept. They eat well but there is no feeding frenzy when the food is presented. They don’t seem to react much to movement on the other side of the glass but otherwise behave normally.

Of the seven fish I am quite confident that four are C. loretoensis, there are however three individuals that more or less stand out.

Fish#6, that Steve said could be a C096:


Fish#3 that was in quite a state two weeks back, it seems to be recovering well:


Fish#1, easily the largest of them all and one of the two with some sort of growth/mucus/fungi(?)



I’m also including a photo of a loretoensis with the same type of mucus even though this probably deserves a new thread:


I feel like all of the three above potentially could be C096, there is a more or less a hint of a dark shoulder marking on all, even though I can only see it on one side of fish#1. All of the above have the dark eye markings. They also seem somewhat bulkier then the rest and they seem to lack, or have less spots in the face and forehead region. Lastly the above three have more of a creamy base colour compared to the whitish almost silver coloured rest as well as completely circular eyes.

I would very much appreciate comments on this as I’m merely speculating and not sure if I see things because I want to see them (shoulder blotch/creamy colour).

Perhaps they need even more time to gain colour?

Melander

Hi
Difficult to say for sure but I think fish #6 and 3 could be C096.

Thanks Steve,

Fish# 6 and 3 are the two I'm most confident about, fish# 1 is somewhere between these and the confirmed C. loretoensis colour wise.

As the fish has recovered well I want to separate the two species, 6 and 3 will go into another tank when its ready.

Andreas