PlanetCatfish.com

15 cm SL. Trade-in at LFS. Well fed ;)

The headshape is odd, but the pattern would seem to indicate .

Jools

That seems right. When taking pics, that was the most 'round' the mouth goes.

It seems he was deformed, but why/ how, I don't know how he was kept.

I wound't say well fed cause sunken eyes and looks swollen. Avoid meaty fatty foods. Yes, L191.

Also has a look of L095, but without the orange tinge. Eyes seem to always appear a little sunken on that species. Not a Panaque, but just a thought

Highly unlikely but i'll chip in to see what anyone thinks....'balloon' bred?

Like Mollies etc - after all we've seen it with doradids & synos

Richard B wrote:Highly unlikely but i'll chip in to see what anyone thinks....'balloon' bred?

I would think not given...

1. This is the least likely sp. to be tampered with from a commercial reward perspective. I mean, if you're going to start mucking about with that genus, it's all about the Panda Panaque (with blue eyes)!
2. No one is commercially breeding Panaque and there are no other examples of this form of globally.
3. We have other examples of environmental (as opposed to genetic) damage on plecos akin to this.
4. This is a guess, but I think it would be hard to strip eggs from a Panaque as opposed to something like a Syno.

Jools

Not sure if this is helpful, but I've seen ones like these being sold in a few LFS a while back as royal watermelons according to the label. But again I'm not a pleco person but thought I would put it out there. In the tank, it had all similar body shape with some being more green, some with faint line tracing and some looking like the pic above.