Post by angelminx on Jun 21, 2015 16:32:27 GMT -5
Hi, All!
As soon as I can (Carl's working on the "Attachment" issue) I'll post some pics of my new Pleco. He was sold to me (and is listed on the APet Vendor Availability List) under the common name Snowball Pleco (Sku # 940518). There is no scientific name (or L-number) associated with it. I tried to email APet about getting the name, or even collection location (if they have that info), but I haven't heard back from them.
He's 2" TL, and was very shy at first...still is, but moves around the tank a lot more (as long as he thinks I'm not around/looking). I'd taken a picture of him on the front glass, and zoomed in to get a close-up of his mouth, so I could compare his mouth/dentition to what I might find on the web...unfortunately, my camera has since died, so I can't use the camera to compare pics (I do have a copy on the computer tho). Anyway, from what little I could find on the internet, I think he's an Hypancistrus contradens. The photos I was able to bring up were mostly the wrong angle and/or out of focus (two just had captions such as "pleco list" or "you must enable Java Script"), so I'm only guessing on the photos/species I was looking at. Most pics don't show the mouth/teeth, but, rather were typical-angle shots. Hypancistrus was the closest match of any I found (dentition-wise), and I don't think he's H. inspector, the Hypancistrus most often called the snowball pleco, because (according to the majority of info I found) the spots on the head are supposed to be smaller on that species. All the spots are fairly large on my guy. I seriously doubt he's a Baryancistrus species (the one that most often comes up on an internet search of "snowball pleco"), because the teeth don't look right to me. I don't think he's a "vampire" pleco (Leporacanthicus species, such as L. galaxias) either. I haven't found anything about their teeth that pertains to an age that they become characteristic for the genus, or if they are the same at all ages...to top it off, they can retract their "upper" teeth, so if he does have the same type, he's too little for me to tell (found some cool
pics of their teeth on the web). There are others that go buy that common name (or similar, such as "Big White Spot Pleco"), and then again, he could be one of the many undescribed species that abound. I made a copy of the list (with pictures) from the Fishbase site (unfortunately a lot of these fish don't have pictures), which (as of a couple of days ago) listed 900 species from the family Loricariidae. The same goes for the L-number list I have that shows photos (only a few are pictured).
I got him (Friday, June 5th) when Petco had a 3-day 20% off sale. He was going for $19.99, but I had some dead rummynose tetras to return (they hadn't got any more of them in) so with that and the 20% off, I paid $5 and some change. He was the best looking of the 2 they had; the other one's body color was more grayish rather than black. When I talked to the sales girl the next day she said that later on that that one's base color turned black (?)now that it was on it's own? The one I picked had a slightly hollow belly, but when I caught him to check him over when I did my next water change he had plumped up.
That's all for now.
As soon as I can (Carl's working on the "Attachment" issue) I'll post some pics of my new Pleco. He was sold to me (and is listed on the APet Vendor Availability List) under the common name Snowball Pleco (Sku # 940518). There is no scientific name (or L-number) associated with it. I tried to email APet about getting the name, or even collection location (if they have that info), but I haven't heard back from them.
He's 2" TL, and was very shy at first...still is, but moves around the tank a lot more (as long as he thinks I'm not around/looking). I'd taken a picture of him on the front glass, and zoomed in to get a close-up of his mouth, so I could compare his mouth/dentition to what I might find on the web...unfortunately, my camera has since died, so I can't use the camera to compare pics (I do have a copy on the computer tho). Anyway, from what little I could find on the internet, I think he's an Hypancistrus contradens. The photos I was able to bring up were mostly the wrong angle and/or out of focus (two just had captions such as "pleco list" or "you must enable Java Script"), so I'm only guessing on the photos/species I was looking at. Most pics don't show the mouth/teeth, but, rather were typical-angle shots. Hypancistrus was the closest match of any I found (dentition-wise), and I don't think he's H. inspector, the Hypancistrus most often called the snowball pleco, because (according to the majority of info I found) the spots on the head are supposed to be smaller on that species. All the spots are fairly large on my guy. I seriously doubt he's a Baryancistrus species (the one that most often comes up on an internet search of "snowball pleco"), because the teeth don't look right to me. I don't think he's a "vampire" pleco (Leporacanthicus species, such as L. galaxias) either. I haven't found anything about their teeth that pertains to an age that they become characteristic for the genus, or if they are the same at all ages...to top it off, they can retract their "upper" teeth, so if he does have the same type, he's too little for me to tell (found some cool
pics of their teeth on the web). There are others that go buy that common name (or similar, such as "Big White Spot Pleco"), and then again, he could be one of the many undescribed species that abound. I made a copy of the list (with pictures) from the Fishbase site (unfortunately a lot of these fish don't have pictures), which (as of a couple of days ago) listed 900 species from the family Loricariidae. The same goes for the L-number list I have that shows photos (only a few are pictured).I got him (Friday, June 5th) when Petco had a 3-day 20% off sale. He was going for $19.99, but I had some dead rummynose tetras to return (they hadn't got any more of them in) so with that and the 20% off, I paid $5 and some change. He was the best looking of the 2 they had; the other one's body color was more grayish rather than black. When I talked to the sales girl the next day she said that later on that that one's base color turned black (?)now that it was on it's own? The one I picked had a slightly hollow belly, but when I caught him to check him over when I did my next water change he had plumped up.
That's all for now.
