Rineloricaria spp. ID?

[Fallen_Leaves16]

Originally headed out to my LFS with the intention of obtaining a couple C. musaica to add to my group, only to find that their supplier had somehow sent a completely different species instead of the woodcats they had ordered. Either way, I was looking to obtain perhaps a pair or group of some species of loricariid, and the money I had was burning a hole in my pocket, so I grabbed a trio of "Orange Banded Whiptail Catfish" that was at the store with little further thought. Examination in quarantine revealed that they were not, in fact, very orange, and possessed traits quite similar to Rineloricaria eigenmanni (and also, they had ich ). Then I moved them to a small 5.5G for treatment, and was able to grab a couple shots of the fish's underside, which revealed that all three fish are not, in fact, what I had believed to be R. eigenmanni (paid way more than I should've for just three random whiptails to be honest... then again thinking things through was never one of my strong suits). Looked around online, and the site that I heavily suspect my LFS orders from has them under the same exact vernacular name (and quite a similar image to the largest specimen I bought) with the latin name of Rineloricaria aequalicuspis. I most certainly do not trust that site (they even have an image of Brachyhypopomus brevirostris under Gymnotus carapo) but it's all I have to work with.
Anyways, here are the pictures of the fish. Hoping someone on this forum can help me ID them.

[Fallen_Leaves16]

[Fallen_Leaves16]

I apologize in advance for the exceptionally poor photos and untidy tank; I tossed in a fair amount of bloodworms in hopes of getting them to eat, but I don't think that was much of a success. I removed all the f/t worms and did a 50% water change after the pics.

[bekateen]

Hi Fallen_Leaves16,

Nice pickup... except for the ich. What are you using for meds? If me, I would use Seachem Paraguard or plain old "Nox-Ich" (the latter is my go-to for ich). A three day treament should clean them up.

As for identification,

Rineloricaria aequalicuspis

comes out of the Rio Grande do Sul area. To my knowledge, nothing, or almost nothing, is exported out of there. So I seriously doubt that ID is correct.

I'm not sure what they are.

Rineloricaria eigenmanni

is variable in color, but has recognizable broken or solid longitudinal lines on the caudal abdomen. I don't see that here, so I think you have something else. Keep the photos coming please!

Good luck,
Eric

[bekateen]

By the way, this mouth, lips and teeth look crazy to me if these are a common Rineloricaria!

I don't recall seeing Rineloricaria with such papillose lips and such teeth. Might it be a different genus? Compare your fish's lips to that of R. eigenmanni, here: https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/im ... ge_id=5982

I Googled the common name you mentioned and I found one website selling this fish: the store is called "The Fish Warehouse." But this website is very lacking in detail. Is this where you bought these?

Cheers, Eric

[Fallen_Leaves16]

By the way, this mouth, lips and teeth look crazy to me if these are a common Rineloricaria!

20230406_220904~2.jpg

I don't recall seeing Rineloricaria with such papillose lips and such teeth. Might it be a different genus? Compare your fish's lips to that of R. eigenmanni, here: https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/im ... ge_id=5982

I Googled the common name you mentioned and I found one website selling this fish: the store is called "The Fish Warehouse." But this website is very lacking in detail. Is this where you bought these?

Cheers, Eric

The mouthparts and dentition (and the complete lack of patterning on the underside) was what threw me off; I didn't know it was distinct enough to differentiate the fish from Rineloricaria, though. Perhaps a young Loricaria species instead? I do feel as though the lips would have more feathery papillae if the fish were indeed Loricaria, but perhaps they're far too young as of yet.

I've been treating the whiptails with a somewhat low dose of Ich-X, aquarium salt, and heat (though I just found out this morning that the heater broke). I'll have to try Nox-Ich; heard of it a couple times but never really thought of it much. The active ingredients list seems rather basic with fairly generic meds for ich, but a lot of reviews are claiming that it's quite effective.

The smallest whiptail (also the one most heavily affected by ich) seems to be doing quite poorly, and has noticeably sunken eyes. Quite worried about that one; I don't know if it'll make it.


After accumulating a short list of rather uncommon fishes my LFS had in stock recently, I cross-referenced the vernacular names on that list with around 30 or so online sites that either have a wide selection or offer wholesale; the site with the most matches was "The Fish Warehouse". Some of the LFS employees kept referring to a "warehouse" that they'd get fish from (the store isn't very large and I highly doubt they have a separate warehouse) and the distance between the LFS and the approximate location of the warehouse wholesaler is around ~40mins, making it highly likely that the two businesses are affiliated in some way. Therefore, I suspect that I have indeed indirectly purchased the whiptails from "The Fish Warehouse". Unfortunately, they seem quite difficult to contact and my LFS has confirmed that they cannot name a collection point, which would make ID'ing the whiptails quite difficult, I suspect.
"The Fish Warehouse" is supposedly an exclusively wholesale site that sells to physical brick-and-mortar stores; as a result, some information is only visible to store owners that have made an account with them.

[bekateen]

I was talking to Norman Behr about your fish. Based on the mouth, he says

Spatuloricaria

! Wow, that's terrific!

Cheers, Eric

[Fallen_Leaves16]

I was talking to Norman Behr about your fish. Based on the mouth, he says

Spatuloricaria

! Wow, that's terrific!

Cheers, Eric

That's incredible to hear! I thought my fish were just some sort of overpriced obscure Rineloricaria at best; one of the last things I expected was for them to be Spatuloricaria! Wonder how the wholesaler and fish store got them, though. Might be confusing Spatuloricaria with a different genus, but aren't they usually quite pricey due to difficulties with collection and exportation?
Also, thanks for the ID! I really appreciate the help- I was quite stumped on what the fish were until you and Norman were able to put a name to them.

[bekateen]

That's incredible to hear! I thought my fish were just some sort of overpriced obscure Rineloricaria at best; one of the last things I expected was for them to be Spatuloricaria! Wonder how the wholesaler and fish store got them, though. Might be confusing Spatuloricaria with a different genus, but aren't they usually quite pricey due to difficulties with collection and exportation?

It's really not that uncommon for exporters to mess up IDs, and then the importers and retailers just use the names given to them by the exporters who sell the fish. This propagates the error.

It just happened to me today! Check out this post of mine from this morning: Picked up some new fish today.

The fish were exported (and imported) as "Loricaria tefeana" (a misspelling of

Rineloricaria teffeana

). The fish ended up being a mix of

Limatulichthys griseus

and

Rineloricaria melini

! I am beyond happy.

Cheers,
Eric

[Fallen_Leaves16]

That's incredible to hear! I thought my fish were just some sort of overpriced obscure Rineloricaria at best; one of the last things I expected was for them to be Spatuloricaria! Wonder how the wholesaler and fish store got them, though. Might be confusing Spatuloricaria with a different genus, but aren't they usually quite pricey due to difficulties with collection and exportation?

It's really not that uncommon for exporters to mess up IDs, and then the importers and retailers just use the names given to them by the exporters who sell the fish. This propagates the error.

It just happened to me today! Check out this post of mine from this morning: Picked up some new fish today.

The fish were exported (and imported) as "Loricaria tefeana" (a misspelling of

Rineloricaria teffeana

). The fish ended up being a mix of

Limatulichthys griseus

and

Rineloricaria melini

! I am beyond happy.

Cheers,
Eric

Thanks for the info! I saw your thread not too long ago; amazing group of fish you got there!

[Fallen_Leaves16]

Rather unfortunate update- one of the three Spatuloricaria seems to have passed away quite recently for little apparent reason. The one that died was, oddly enough, the fish that I least expected to have perished; it was the "medium-sized" individual of the three and the only one that I think had eaten (or at least tried to). Seemed to be the least-emaciated and most active as well. What I find a bit odd is how not half an hour before I had watched that very fish chew up some bloodworms and shuffle across the bottom of the tank. The deceased fish, oddly enough, had sunken eyes and somewhat concave sides, something I definitely didn't see when it was alive. Based off of that, I've come to the conclusion that it died out of stress and starvation. Examination of the corpse seems to show a number of tiny black speckles on the underside (visible on some of the pictures, too, though on a different fish); this seems to be some sort of external parasite (possibly a cyst? didn't react to meds and wouldn't come off of the fish).
Dorsal fin ray count is 8, pectoral fin ray count is 7, middle row of lateral plate projections/spines (the sticking-out bits; not sure what they're formally named) yields a count of 29 (counted thrice), and the fish has 5-6 (likely five, but a very faint outline of a sixth) bands across its body. Orangish-brownish coloration on its fins (seems to be the base color on the largest of the three specimens, as opposed to grey on the other two) as well. Quite reminiscent of most of the depictions of Spatuloricaria puganensis on PlanetCatfish, but no clue if that's the specific species.
Corpse is now frozen in a plastic sandwich bag with some water.
The other two fish had not eaten at all (and seemed clear of ich), and so, in a desperate (and in hindsight, foolish) move I placed the two into a community tank where they were to be headed after quarantine. Both (especially the larger one) seem to shuffle around the bottom a lot more, and may possibly be eating (bit doubtful though). Bit difficult trying to feed them; every time there's anything remotely edible that hits the water, more than half the inhabitants crowd around it in hopes of getting a chance to eat, and anything that somehow hits the bottom is either quickly hoovered up by other catfishes or swiftly consumed by apistos. I think they might've eaten a bloodworm or two based on their actions, but I can't confirm.