Today I got my new Candy Stripe Pleco, from Modern Angl and its such an awesome fish with such clear markings. However it does look slightly different to whats on planetcatfish.

I also noticed it is very fat.

it is a female, and if so is it gravid? he/she is pretty fat.

any help is much appreciated!

Awesome fish. Very cool.

Oh Phoenix that is so cute. Haha, can't answer any of your questions but!

Wow. It looks very similar to my clown pleco's L104 and i read they are often misidentified as clowns. Very nice fish.

thanks guys!

yeah KP I did notice the resemblance to the clown plecos but now im thoroughly confused.

plecs, and such catfish are among my favourites, so i just want to learn more about them.

oh and when i picked him up, he croaked at me

made a weird sound.

:lol:

You must be squeezing him /her to hard phoenix44 :lol: :lol:

Think you need to be a bit more gentle, he/she never made a sound for me when I picked it up :-?

Have to say I rather enjoyed fishy sitting her for the night :bounce:

i picked it up normal! :lol: plus i didnt press the tummy.

just as long as it doesn't croak permanently :lol:

Haha no tummy "button"

i wouldnt mind a croaking fish - my pictus used to croak :lol: well the sounded like they were singing.

looks like a female but it does not look like a L015

thats what i was thinking .... so what is it?

was thinking a realy nice l104 but it looks a bit odd still haha tuff one got any new piks now its settled in?

I know what you mean, it looks like a clown, but then it doesn't.. know what i mean?

:lol:

its made friends with the butterfly plec, and now they both are hiding

Great looking fish but you may be struggling to put it to a species (or L-number).

Apparently Peckoltia vittata is often confused with the clown pleco, Panaque maccus. You should be able to determine wether its a Peckoltia or a Panaque by looking at the teeth.

Peckoltias have roughly the same number of teeth on the upper and lower jaws. They are brush-shaped and roughly the same size.

Panaques have a small number of spoon-shaped teeth (ie. noticably wider at the end than the base) arranged in a V.

Look on the internet for pictures of the mouth as it should be relatively easy to tell.

Hope this helps.

Many thanks for that flatfish

I shall have a look at the teeth and see if she is a panaque or a L015.

visually thought its still confusing as far as the pattern is concerned - its markings are far too distinct to be a clown, but perhaps this is just my observations, as ive never had a clown plec with markings like this :lol:

planetcatfish is officially the most confusing site on the internet. its search engine is legendary though!

Yeah I agree it looks different to a clown and the patterns do look sharp. Many Peckoltias, Panaques, and even some species of Hypancistrus do look remarkably similar. It may well be a Peckoltia. Check the teeth and you should get what genus it is. From there good luck. It may be worth posting images on Planet catfish and one of the pleco gods may be able to give you an id.

Anyway its a great looking pleco whatever it is.

and larger images on:

i hope the pics are of some use. I cant do the whole ID thing. its driving me mental really :lol:

yeah good luck nice plec i spent some time on planetcatfish but to no avail its not i vittata and thats all i can tell you apparently they came in as L134 which is leopard frog but it definetly aint one of those im somewhat miffed as to its origin at the moment but do think its a pekoltia of somesort

thanks mr.pleco! i havent had much luck either. i thought of L134 as well but isnt as bright as them, and the colours are the other way round...

I wish i could know for certain what it was.

there are a lot of random ones going around at the moment, just the other day i saw a Leporacanthicus heterodon L 172 and freaked and wanted to buy it but the dude wasn't willing to sell it :lol:

there is a leopard frog pleco on the auction site at the moment that looks similar

yeh! saw that.. the colours are inverted though. v nice fish, i like it.

i may stand corrected check out this llink i cant tell the difference

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =5&t=25405

maybe answers yr question and they change with age

everything looks exactly the same!

so it must be a leopard frog plec? L134?

but on the main fish ID site, the L134 looks different =(

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/im ... ge_id=8165

that fish is listed as a L134 - but looks more like a butterfly plec - which ive also got. so now im even more confused.

the species gets darker with age apparently. perhaps this is the case?