PlanetCatfish.com

Hello everyone, I've been a looong time occasional visitor to Planet Catfish, I actually watched it being born and even contributed a few pics in the beginning and gave Julian his first (well deserved) website "award" back in '98 , but this is the first time I'm posting in the board.

Last Sunday my wife and I found this cutest little pleco at a LFS here in Hiroshima (JP). What impressed me the most was how such a tiny pleco could be so totally relaxed in the tank...solid colors, fins wide open, merrily scraping algae around and totally oblivious to the other fish or the customers. The shop guy said it was called "Imperial Ranger Pleco" (an impressive name for a 1" fish!) but confessed he didn't know absolutely anything else about it except that it's a "new species".

I came home and did a Google search with no luck. I could find "Imperial Pleco", another commercial name for Hypancistrus zebra which it obviously isn't. No luck with "Ranger Pleco" except for someone else asking what they were on another board (no good answers) and a stock list of some shop selling "Pleco Ranger" for $4.99 (no info).

Of course we couldn't let a nice little mystery fish like this end up in some horrible home (horrible in this case meaning "not ours" LOL), so we went back there to bring it home into her tank. Here's a couple pics while it was still bagged and floating. It's pretty hard to get a good pic of such a small fish!





Anyway, if somebody recognizes the body patterns or the name, I'd love to hear about it!

Hi Marcos,

Well it is nice to "talk" again. I think this fish is a young , see also this post - http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5405 .

It would be very useful for us if you could photograph this fish every few months so we could have a record of them and their growth, pattern development over time.

Cheers,

Jools

Yeah, that's a pretty close match. Thanks Jools!

You even have the name Imperial Ranger Pleco on that page...odd that it didn't show up on search, Planet Catfish is usually among the first results whenever I'm researching a Loricarid.

Anyway, I'm only staying in Japan for another year so I'll have to eventually give the fish away, but I'll try to keep a record at least during this period.

Thanks again! I have a series of contributed Catfish pics to my site that I'll be putting up over the next few months, and I think I'm going to start using this great board to help confirm the species I can't find info about

Marcos,

Be sure and send a few pics our way then. Actually I only put the imperial... name up last night, in response to your post.

Jools

Hi there,

Yes these are the wee fella's for sale at

Calder Valley Koi Aquatic Centre in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorks

I have 5 of these so shall also send some pics of their growth over the months if thats ok with everyone

Cheers
Stu

ZOINK...

Dragin this one up from the dead... did you ever get the piccys?

I'm only asking as i've just managed to pick up a few myself, and I'm a nightmare for taking piccys







Russell

You know, what would be really nice with this species if we could show what this species looks like at about every inch of its full grown length.

Anyone sign up to this and can send me pics in a year or two showing development over time?

I'd like to do that for so many plecos.......

Jools

count me in then ;)

SmithRC has sent me some pics a year on and so I've added them. Useful info!

Jools