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Is anyone familiar with the L-27a (Watermelon Pleco)?

I was at aquabid.com and I saw a fish for sale called the L-27a (Watermelon pleco). They didn't have a picture of it, but in the description they called it a watermelon royal pleco ( http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/ ... 1047013503 ).

Is this just another type of Panaque, or is it just a false name for another type of pleco?

i remeber that shane posted in the old forum that he bought some...i think that they were really expensive...if i remeber right he said they were the most expensive plecos he bought so far...

they are royal panaques with broken lines i think there should be some pics in the catelog...havent checked though

The "watermelon" seems to be a color variant or sub spp. of P. nigrolineatus from the Caqueta region of southern Colombia. $30 seems like a very good price to me.
-Shane

Watermelons are spotted Royals. I believe that there is a second watermelon up for bid on aquabid.

There seems to be two different variations of Panaque sp. cf. Nigrolineatus. The two fish are very different in color. Why do they share the same name? One of the panaques was labled L027b, which leads me to believe the other one is L027a (watermelon pleco or red fin royal pleco).

Here's my watermelon. In one of the thread, TKP actually notice that the lines change patterns when they grow.

Here is another watermelon up on aquabid:

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/ ... 1047242998

BTW, I was looking at a couple of my catfish books and saw that in The World of Catfishes by Midori Kobayagawa, the watermelon is called Panaque albomaculatus.

Shurely that panaque on aquabid can't be full size?

Don't they get bigger.

on a side note, fishfarm USA (from the aquabid auction) is a great seller to deal with. i have ordered from him before and will do so again.