What are they selling as Ancistrus leucostictus?

wijnands · Post by **wijnands** » 02 May 2012, 18:07

In my quest for ancistrus claro I popped into my LFS to check what they had on offer.

Only ancistrus species they had was a tank of small fry, about 12-15mm of something labled Ancistrus Leucostictus. Liked the look of these guys and 3 fish for 10 euros was a tempting price. However, there was a nagging voice in the back of my head that there was something special about leucostictus. So I took a quick snapshot and decided to look it up when I got home.

Is there anyone who can say with some degree of certainty what this is? OR do I need to go back and reshoot?

Suckermouth · Post by **Suckermouth** » 02 May 2012, 18:56

These are commons! A. leucostictus is from the Essequibo River which is very rarely collected for the aquarium trade.

Bas Pels · Post by **Bas Pels** » 02 May 2012, 18:58

This is the common Ancistrus cf cirrhosus. The prize alone would tell you that, for that prize one can not expect anything out of the ordinary.

leucostictus should be yellow, I'm not certain whether leucos is Greek or Latin, but I do know it means yellow.

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 02 May 2012, 19:01

These look like common Ancistrus,
As you can see in the data sheet, would be a very rare find in the shops.

So don't let them fool you

pleco_breeder · Post by **pleco_breeder** » 02 May 2012, 19:40

I kept a group of true leucostictus for several years, and can definitely say they are not the fish shown here. As mentioned before, leucostictus are not commonly available in shops unless there is a local breeder selling them. Mine came from a wild collection made by another hobbyist.

Larry

Suckermouth · Post by **Suckermouth** » 02 May 2012, 19:44

Bas Pels wrote:leucostictus should be yellow, I'm not certain whether leucos is Greek or Latin, but I do know it means yellow.

From :

The specific epithet is derived from Leucos (greek) = white, stictus (greek) = spotted.

wijnands · Post by **wijnands** » 02 May 2012, 19:50

Thanks everyone, I knew these guys weren't leucostictus, anyone reading the writeup for that species knows that. I considered cirrhosus but wasn't entirely sure, the dorsal fin looked whiter on these.

Shame really, cirrhosus is a nice looking species and apparently easy to breed but at 12 centimeters just not a realistic option for this 60 liter setup I have.

The search for the elusive claro continues.

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 02 May 2012, 20:04

is another nice smaller .

Jools

pleco_breeder · Post by **pleco_breeder** » 02 May 2012, 20:08

Jools wrote:
L107
is another nice smaller
Ancistrus
.

Jools

I definitely have to agree with Jools, but they do get quite a bit larger than .

Larry

wijnands · Post by **wijnands** » 02 May 2012, 20:20

Yeah... 130mm is a bit bigger. Even for claro I occasionally see larger sizes reported.

I'm baffled really why there's hardly any claro on sale here, from what I've read it's not that difficult to breed and with dutch homes being the size they are many people here keep relatively small aquariums.

Suckermouth · Post by **Suckermouth** » 02 May 2012, 20:39

wijnands wrote:Shame really, cirrhosus is a nice looking species and apparently easy to breed but at 12 centimeters just not a realistic option for this 60 liter setup I have.

The search for the elusive claro continues.

To be clear, commons are not known to be cirrhosus for sure, though they're similar.

wijnands · Post by **wijnands** » 02 May 2012, 21:06

Meaning? It could be anything? Or is it likely to appear identical including the size?

Suckermouth · Post by **Suckermouth** » 02 May 2012, 21:11

wijnands wrote:Meaning? It could be anything? Or is it likely to appear identical including the size?

The common bristlenose is called "" here on PlanetCatfish, the cf. meaning that it is similar to but not certainly identified as . Because a lot of Ancistrus look similar, this means it could be something else entirely. According to the Cat-eLog, Ancistrus cf. cirrhosus grows slightly larger than Ancistrus cirrhosus.

wijnands · Post by **wijnands** » 02 May 2012, 21:59

Aha! That makes a lot of sense, thanks!

Mike_Noren · Post by **Mike_Noren** » 03 May 2012, 08:27

wijnands wrote:I'm baffled really why there's hardly any claro on sale here

It is a very rare fish around here too (Sweden), I have never seen one in a shop. I have occasionally seen claro on the stocklists of various German wholesellers, but I do not know if they're correctly identified.

Nijrem · Post by **Nijrem** » 03 May 2012, 21:25

Recently got a small one, labeled leucostictus. Doesn't really look like any picture I've found, suppose its a similar story.
I'll take a look at more pictures to figure out what mine 'sort of' is.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Mike_Noren · Post by **Mike_Noren** » 03 May 2012, 22:11

Nijrem wrote:Recently got a small one, labeled leucostictus.

That's a young Common.