Butterfly Pleco, or Hillstream Loach?

[darylann]

I'm writing on behalf of my 11-year old daughter, who's a newbie with a fishtank and a rapidly growing interest. ...OK, I admit it! I can't resist bringing home more fish for her, plus a couple for me!!!
Anyway, one of the fish sold to me was called by the pet shop lady a "butterfly pleco," which I accepted of course, knowing nothing about fish anyway. But since looking at a few books, and then doing a search on the internet for more pictures, I'm convinced instead that it looks just like pictures of the hillstream loach, not a butterfly pleco. Am I mistaken... or is she? How can I determine what it really is?

 

[fishfreaks]

can you tell us a little bit more about what the fish looks like or add a pic?

 

[darylann]

The fish we have looks exactly like the one featured at this URL: http://www.loaches.com/species_pages/beaufortia_kweichowensis.html ... except that it is very dark (black?). I could find no pictures of the butterfly pleco that looked like our fish, especially the underside.

 

[qtaquaman]

The link showed a hillstream loach. The bulldog plec looks similar but you'll notice two wide areas in a hillstream loach only one in a bulldog pleco.

 

[darylann]

By "two wide areas," do you mean on the underside? Because that's what made me start wondering about the actual identity of our fish in the first place. Almost its whole body seems to be suction-cupped to the glass, in two sort of overlapping sections. The pleco seems to attach only in the front (mouth) ... correct? If we got a Hillstream Loach instead of a Pleco, should I be mad or glad? We like the little guy, but I'm beginning to wonder about the competence of the pet shop (for various other reasons, the more I learn).