What kind of Pleco?

[Seattle]

135529

Was sold as a Golden Spotted Butterfly Pleco? is there such a thing?

:huh:

[user_name]

sailfin?

[user_name]

sailfin?
actually the fin isn't that big.... my guess is as good as yours.

[rwilliams254]

the sucking kind.

[GoldLenny]

Count the rays in the dorsal fin. Try to get a picture with the dorsal fin fully extended. That helps to exclude certain species at least. How old do you think it is? If still a juvi, they are even harder to ID.... at least my previous rescued pleco was, even for the experts on PlecoFanatics and PlanetCatfish... but eventually it grew up to be one of the "common pleco" species.

If you bought it as a "common pleco", read this profile which explains some of the differences... http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=88

I should add that mine looked a LOT like yours when it was smaller but grew up to look just like this...

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/image.php?species=pterygoplichthys+pardalis&image_id=5589

[Haydn24]

Looks like sailfin to me but idk. The sailfins sold at my lfs look like that

[KevG]

A fantail?

[aj2494]

Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps AKA sailfin pleco

[GoldLenny]

Well it definitelyhas more than 10 rays in it's dorsal fin so Pterygoplichthys sp. looks good. Since it's still a juvi, you could browse through all the photos on the below profiles and look for juvi pictures but P. gibbiceps and P. pardalis are two "common plecos" found at pet stores... as well as a couple of other "common plecos". Here's a list of all of the Pterygoplichthys sp. listed on Planet Catfish.

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/index.php?genus_search_type=is&genus=Pterygoplichthys&species_search_type=is&species=&task=Search

[ianab]

Sure looks like a baby Gibby to me.

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=148

Interesting thing is that the spots stay about the same size as the fish grows. So a baby like that just has a few spots. When they get to a foot long, they have hundreds.

Cool fish, but grows big, up to 18".

Ian

[Seattle]

Was purchased as a Golden Spotted Butterfly Pleco.

[GoldLenny]

Hmmmm... doesn't look real "golden" unless the contrast is way off on your pic.

No such thing according to PlanetCatfish. There are Gold Spot Dwarf Plecos, Butterfly Plecos and all sorts of other spotted plecos... but nothing by that name.

A Google search of "golden spotted butterfly pleco" found only this thread so nobody else has ever heard of that common name either. :-P

I hope they didn't charge you some outrageous price for the elusive and thought to be extinct Golden Spotted Butterfly Pleco. ;-)

[GEV83]

That is a gibbiceps. Only thing I could think of as far as a golden spotted butterfly pleco would be some type of Hillstream loach. They are normally refered to as butterfly pleco's even though there not related at all since one is well a loach the other a catfish. What you have is a gibbiceps though. Its just a young one its colors will become more defined with age and size.

[GoldLenny]

I think loaches are catfish unless something has changed recently.. or was that a typo and you meant "one is a loach and the other is a pleco"?

http://www.fishbase.org/summary/OrdersSummary.cfm?order=Siluriformes

[GEV83]

ummmm no i didnt mean pleco instead of catfish. The order of catfish is siluriformes and loaches fall under the order cypriniformes which include carps minnows and loaches. Two different orders. Look them up youll see im right =-)

Look up butterfly pleco and youll find pics of the hillstream loach show up.

[GoldLenny]

I know I've read that loaches were catfish on more than one reliable site but I'll admit I'm no loach expert so I just did some googling to see where I may have been misled and apparently you are mostly right with the main "Loaches" (S. American, Asian) being in the Cypriniformes Order but there does seem to be African Loach Catfish also which are in the Siluriformes Order and that's what I've read about in the past.

According to Fishbase, there are Loach Catfish from the African Hillstream Catfish/Loaches genus of Amphiliidae that are in the Siluriformes Order, which is the link I posted earlier. Here's the one for Amphiliidae. http://www.fishbase.org/summary/FamilySummary.cfm?id=136 - Family Amphiliidae - Loach catfishes

PlanetCatfish calls them African Hillstream Catfishes but describes them as having loach-like body forms. http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/family.php?family_id=24#1

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loach_catfish (has some decent references)

Sorry for having a senior moment for a moment. :-P

[GEV83]

The Loach Catfish is called that because it is shaped like a loach but its not a loach rather a catfish. There non related. A good example is the Glass Snake which isnt a snake at all but a legless lizard. There only called that because they resemble a different family but are not related. I kinda figured youde bring up the Loach Catfish. Catfish and Loaches are different order of fish. Common Names tend to make things complicated sometimes.

[garathnor]

they are both gibbiceps