Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fish Identification => Topic started by: Gazza.Esq on February 19, 2014, 02:52:45 PM
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Afternoon all
Some time since I was on here but loking for some assistance in Id-ing this fish. I saw it at my LFS it was on its own with some tetras and labelled as Whiptail Catfish - which I am sure it is not as whiptails have very thin tails and this is more like a fan ?. I asked the chap there and he said it was commonly called Whiptail but is Ancistrus Famella. I googled Famella but came up blank. So any ideas ?? I was told it grows to 6-7 cm
Thanks
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The patterning does look a bit like a bristlenose, an Ancistrus species. Famella sounds a bit like Farlowella, but it's not one of them.
The only thing I can thing of is to go to planetcatfish and do a search on there. It could take some time though. The first step would be to search for ancistrus and look at every image. You might be lucky and find it there. I think there are some long finned bristlenoses which is what your pic looks a bit like.
I have found ancistrus femelle on google but all the links are French I think it means female ancistrus! I don't suppose the LFS just means a female bristlenose?
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Thanks Sue.You are right Ancistrus femelle is french for female Ancistrus. I got the same results when I googled it I am trying Planet Catfish but there are a lot of images to go through so thought I'd try on here in case anyone had an idea. Oh well back to searching ::)
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Well mystery solved.;D
I am told it is a captive bred veiltail variant of the common bristlenose plec (Ancistrus cf. cirrhosus). I was tole it woul only grow to about 2 1/2 in but seems it could reach twice that size !
When I can will post some pics
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That's good to know.
Who told you that adult size, the shop?
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Yeah. I am not too bothered as I had for some time been thinking of adding a Bristlenose as biggest inhabitants of my tank are currently 3 Cherry Barbs and wanted something a litle larger. I will mention it to the shop next time I am in though ;D If he/she does get really big another tank may be on the cards ;-)
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That's the problem with shops........
It shouldn't get more than 5, maybe 6 inches at most. Since it's a man made variety there is the chance it might also have been bred for body size as well as fin length so might grow to less than that.
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Definitely a veil-tail bristlenose plec. It will get to around 4.5-6 inches.