Right guys,

recently i posted i has happy i bought some l031's....well now i dont think they are,

i'll get some pic's up soon but i have a quick couple of questions,

i have a male and 2 females, male aprox 2.5/3 inch females 2.5inch,

the male is already got a few bristles and the tips are splitting to 2, the females have between 2/3 0.5mm bristles on there lips only,

* my first question is....do L30/L31 peppermints have bristles at all on there nose, all the pics i can find in various places show these with no facial bristles, all growths on the fins,

as a quick edit i have read on a site that the soft bristles on the nose are unique to the genus Ancistrus and the l031 is a Parancistrus.

* secondly what "Black" Bristlenoses (Ancistrus) have white spots, i don't mean round circle spots i mean very small flecks like on a l100 or l181,

pictures to follow soon,

cheers again guys,

Dave

Hope you can get some pictures to help with an ID.

There is an article HERE about Parancistrus and there is no mention of bristles and even mentions that the upper lip is smooth.

Parancistrus have a membrane that connects the dorsal fin to the adipose fin.

The use of ancistrus in the name as in Parancistrus, Hypancistrus, and Ancistrus refers to the hooked interopercular odontodes, as you say the bristles are unique to the Ancistrus.

There are several "Black" Bristlenoses (Ancistrus) that have white spots" some of the others are L071, L213, L249 and L255. sadly with the L No system the same fish can have more than one number and the only difference is the catch location.

yeah i'll get some up tonight,

the place i got them from gets plecos in on a regular basis i wonder if i go down there and ask them a few questions they might be able to find a delivery receipt or something,

i'm guessing as 30/31 etc are on the band list there tank bread, so they might be able to find out somthing,

done some digging round a little but one of the females is a spit of a young 180 plec, on the Cat O Log site,

i'll get a few up in a bit,

well i have spent hours looking through fish pic's of all the L'numbers, i think i have narrowed the search down to the following 5,

L071 (181/249)
L100
L180
L213
L359

the majority of these are all from different locations, so if i can find where they got them from i can find my fish.......

also bit of a long shot.....

the place i got them from had them labeled as peppermint pleco L031, well, if they where ordered from the supplier as pep's maybe they stuck the wrong ID card out and they should be L181's BN Peppermint Pleco's,

hummmmm

i'll find out more after a visit,

no photo's yet, still a little tank shy......