Bristlenose Plec Question

For a pretty long time. I got my L144 BN around april. It was a fry at that time. Now it's almost full grown and just now getting little bristles on the sides. I knew it was a male before this though because I got a second BN and he was very territorial against it. You usually only see that in males.

And also females have been known to get little bristles in some cases at least that is what I read. Whether it was accurate or not I am not sure. But maybe a pleco expect will chime in on maybe a different way of sexing them.

Someone just asked the same question a couple threads down. I read in there and it sounds like the fact that your pleco has tiny bristles near the mouth sounds like it's a male just starting to reach breeding age. Just like mine.

Well mine was born in April. So it's been 8 months and I just started noticing them recently. In the other thread they said something about 8-10 months. if you look at my profile you can see the picture of him, if you can't tell size I would say about 4 inches. Maybe 3 1/2.

Yeah I actually had 2 of them hoping they would be male and female. Made the mistake of getting the next fish from a fish store and not QTing them. Gave the whole tank ich. The fish that brought it in died and so did ther other BN pleco. Now I only have one of him. But I got a long finned Albino BN as a gift so now I have 2 again. Good luck with your pleco and my guess is it's a male since you said it started getting a couple bristles on the sides of it's mouth.

I've noticed the bristles are later to start to appear on the L144's than some other more common bristlenose plecos. You are right brad, around 8 months. You can't always go by how they interact with each other because the young females will puff themselves up and try to scare other females away from food more often than young males toward other young males. If you have more than one you can begin to watch the shape of the mouths when they are against the glass....males have a slightly pointier mouth where females are more rounded in the snoot. And as they get older, you can also see there's a difference in the shape of their bellies when they are against the glass. With the brown bristlenose, when I would catch them and place them in a clear plastic container when I was shipping them, when I held it up to bright light, tiny bristles were there at an earlier age than the L144's. With males you will begin to see tiny bristle stubs around the mouth, but don't confuse them with those side bristly things......for the life of me I cannot remember what they are called,(begins with odo.....??), anyway these odo thingys are on either side of both males and females mouths and are sharp. Maybe someone will come along and put the name of those little thingsy here for my brain!