pleco identification help please

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chantelle

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Oct 14, 2015
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Hi, Ive been looking at these pleco all day,

They are a friends. They are the only two pleco he has. Has had them 1 year.
One is albino (4-5 inches) one is not (5-6 inches) Neither have really grown in the year, He put a submarine deco in the tank and all a sudden he has babies!!!

We have looked at bristlenose pleco (Neither has bristles)
we looked at common pleco (They seem to small the breed for common)
They bred easily without any set conditions all he did was add an ornament, They have had 2 batches now.

Leopard sailfin pleco.. again seem to small to be breeding and aparently none of the requirements they need have been met (For instance they are in a 180 Litre 3 ft tank, with gravel). They bred at 25 degrees and 28 degrees.

So the parents:



The babies



Ive tried going by the babies fin shapes to find the species and i get stuck, Im confused to how one baby looks like a golden nugget!!!

All I can say is the pleco

breed at 4-6 inches
breed very easily
comes in albino and spotty
Top fin is jagged abit
the albino has a spotty pattern slightly

Oh an ph is about 7-7.2

Any help please guys?
 

SnakeIce

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So you have one albino, and one albino gene carrying pleco. These two could be of the same genus, but not be the same species. The variation you are seeing in the young is because of the species cross. The albino makes it a little harder to be sure this is what is going on but that is probably what is happening. So you are raising mutt plecos which might be sterile because of the cross.
 

Narwhal72

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Aug 13, 2009
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The fish in pictures 2,3, and 4 is a Common pleco (Pterygoplichthys sp.). It is a juvenile and years away from sexual maturity. They mature around 10" but most males are around 14-18" when spawning. The fish in the picture looks about 3" SL (Standard Length = Length of body not including the tail). Roughly equivalent in age to a 5-6 year old child.

The albino bristlenose in the first picture is a mature female.

The babies in the pictures are all common bristlenose. Some are albino and some are brown. This will happen when an albino mates with a brown that is heterozygous for albino. There are multiple genes that cause albinism in bn plecos so it's pretty complicated. The fry will not be sterile though.

So that means one of the following has occured:

1. There is also a brown male BN pleco in the aquarium. Probably hiding inside a cave (where the eggs were brooded).

2. The babies were already hatched and hiding in some piece of decor that was recently added to the aquarium.

A female cannot self replicate and there is no way the Common and BN plecos can hybridize.

Did the submarine ornament come from another aquarium by any chance?

Andy
 

chantelle

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Oct 14, 2015
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100% no other pleco was present. These two were first ever pleco in the tank because he wanted his tank running 4 months before getting pleco's. He got these two.

8 Months later.. Babies.

The sub was brand new from the store.

I have the plecos now. In my 3ft. Alone. Just two pleco and Nothing else. No fish, No other pleco's. Just the two.

Someone did say I could have 2 cross breed pleco breeding. I didint know that pleco cross were possible.
 

SnakeIce

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At this point this is just internet speculation. About all we know for sure is that some how eggs got fertilized and the result is viable young.

Sure normally two different species would not breed because of behavior, but the urge to reproduce is strong and given no other options fish often make concessions and work something out. There are several closely related "bristle nose" species and some don't have much in the way of bristles. I don't know how much of the variation in the young would naturally occur in the spawn of a species or if that is because they are the same species but different locality or if the variation is because they are mutts. The albino mixed in doesn't help with making comparisons either.

If you can try getting a fin ray count on the dorsal fin for each parent, and a shot of the mouth when they are on the glass to compare for shape similarities or differences. Gender may make them non identical but they should be at least close if they are the same species. It still might not be definitive, but could give some clues as to what they are or aren't.
 

chantelle

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Oct 14, 2015
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I have attached some more images I took today.

Sizes are wrong! Albino is 2.5 inch and brown is 3.5 Inch.


I have the "adults" and 2 fry at my home now in a 3ft tank alone. I have an albino fry who is 3cm and brown who is 2cm, both 3 weeks (ish) old.

What are the rays on the fin? I always get confused by this, is this the count of lines going up the fin?

12169665_10153729580091501_102774638_o.jpg

12171068_10153729579936501_1987266418_o.jpg


EDIT THIS IS A FRY NOT AN ADULT IMAGE...
received_10153300172672861.jpeg
 

SnakeIce

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Yes lines on the fin are the rays, and the dorsal fin is the on on top that would need to be raised for you to count the rays. Looking at these returns for bristlenose on planet catfish they range from 6-9 rays depending on the species I counted.

http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/quick_find.php
Will have to enter "bristlenose" in the quick find box up in the corner for the list to come up.

It seems the "common" bristlenose pleco is undetermined as to the species and may or may not be a mutt, which would give your various looks in the fry if that is true. Some of the species are rather small as adults so it is not surprising that yours are able to reproduce at that size.
 

fishorama

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Jun 28, 2006
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My guess is both BNs, albino female & just a "not bristly" (yet?) young brown male. All the fry look like BNs to me, there's a lot of variation (some quite pretty). Crosses between the same genus (both ancistrus) are possible; different genus breeding & making viable fry is very unusual & less likely, given the sizes at breeding too
 

Narwhal72

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There is no speculation about it.

The 3" brown pleco is a juvenile common pleco. (Pterygoplichthys sp.) there is no possible way that that pleco could mate with and fertilize eggs with an albino BN pleco (Ancistrus sp.). It's like accusing a 5 year old of being the father of someone's baby. Even more preposterous when you consider that pleco eggs require care by the father to fan and aerate the eggs until they hatch.

The fry show no signs of being hybrids. They look exactly like juvenile BN plecos should look.

Did you check the submarine ornament to see if there was a male hiding in it? Are you sure you didn't add anything else to the tank within the last couple of months that may have had juvenile plecos hiding in it?
 
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