Spotless Ancistrus.

[mjlfish]

[MatsP]

Thanks for that. Looks like we have an ID for my fish...

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Mats

[Unungy]

Lovely pics... and thanks for posting some pictures.

Good luck breeding them Matt

[mjlfish]

No problem Saul, don't mind sharing pics when i have time. these aren't really hard to spawn the trick is keeping the babies from dying off. The are highly succeptable to bacteria, and from what i have read most black water fry are.

[Janne]

Adult L88.

L88 juvenile 28 mm few dots.

L88 juvenile 40 mm no dots at all.

L338 youngster/half adult estimate the TL size ~7-8 cm.


I'm not so good at Ancistrus species because they are so dam hard to tell apart, I think that fully adult L338 will have lost all their spots but when I never have had any I can't be sure, compare the tail fin with yours. That I know is that L88 is a quite special species where the babys and juveniles shows similar characters as A. dolichopterus and a few others except it's a brown species.

Janne

[MatsP]

So Janne, what you are saying is that mjlfish's Ancistrus isn't L088, since it retains the band on the caudal (as do mine, as far as I can see so far) - which would indicate L338 (you wrote 388, but that's a Hypostomus)...

I love Ancistrus, but their ID is only a little bit less difficult than the Loricarinae...

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Mats

[Janne]

I change to the correct L-number.

Yes, if mjlfish confirm that his juveniles not looked like the pictures of the L88 juveniles above I would state that both your species is L338.

L88 have never small and many dots in any stage like mjlfish pictures shows above of youngsters.

Janne

[mjlfish]

Wow, who said Id'ing plecos was easy? It's weird because the fish I have also exhibit alot of the 183 characteristics. And like your pic of the youngster on the rock, when on a dark substrate mine also turn black. The only real difference I can see is the tail. Mine is slightly turned in and yours looks a little more rounded. And of course the spots on the pectoral fins, looks like my adults don't have that so I would have to say that 338 is the right call.

[MatsP]

Ingo Seidel looked at my pictures and said "L338" (well, the exact words was "I know this species, it's Ancistrus from Guama", and then had to look up the L-number in his L-number book).

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Mats

[Janne]

And I live a couple of hundred meters from this river ;)

Janne