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Aquariums
birdwidow

Micro Pleco?

19 years ago

I have a very odd little fish, and no idea as to why, so I'll share with you experienced, advanced fish hobbyists, and hopefully receive some insight.

In Noverber 2006, I bought 4 young Albino BN Plecos at a fish auction. All were about 1 inch long and healthy. They did well and all but one grew quickly to about 5 inches. By March, they were obviously 2 males and one female, so I paired them off with unrelateds.

However, one never seemed to grow at all. It's fat and healthy, but still barely 1 & 1/2 inches long. I put it in a 5 with a few adult female Gups, just to see if it might put on some additional size with no competition, but after 3 months of vigorous feeding, it still hasn't grown any larger.

Is it possible that this fish is a true dwarf? If it has reached full maturity, it's a female and if I could find a male small enough, I'd pair them off, just to see what I'd get.

I do have several "dwarf" BN's: one a very pretty white spotted green male, but even he is twice the size of this tiny mystery fish.

BTW: It (she?) is quite active and gloms into food with gusto, lashing her tail with obvious aggravation if any full grown female Gup twice her size tries to horn in on the treats, so lack of all the food she could possibly eat can't be the reason for her diminutive size.

Any thoughts?

Comments (5)

  • 19 years ago

    Maybe just a genetic thing. There are midget (or whatever the PC thing is to call them) humans. Aren't albinos in general missing some sort of chromasone (sp?) ? Just stabs in the dark, I really don't know, but it sounds logical.

  • 19 years ago

    Woe:

    It would be neat if she is a genetic dwarf. If she would breed with my smallest male BN, the offspring would then carry the gene and eventually, I could produce Octo sized plecos.

    Or, not. That's the real challenge with fish. Will they live? Will they spawn? If so: will the eggs be fertile? Will they hatch? Will the fry survive?

    It's easier with the horses. It take a lot longer to see what you have, but at least they breed literally on command. LOL!

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  • 19 years ago

    It may take a few breedings to make this hybrid. If you do it I'll buy a few. One thing I do want to find is zebra oto's they are really cool looking. I have had tons of Platy's, just standard reds, started with 4, 3 female one male. With in 3 weeks one female changed sex to male. A few matings later a sunset platy appeared, then 2 more later another sunset. Guess if I just isolated the sunsets "liter" after "liter" I would only get sunsets?

    Have fun playing Dr. Moreau (sp?)

  • 19 years ago

    Hi
    I have a similar problem with Clown loaches .None are near potential size but one is still under two inches lol
    The other three are around 5 .In my experience most stunted fish don''t sexually mature . Don't know if that would be true with yours .Might be worth a shot..
    Woeisme. I got two pair of red wag swords in 82 and placed them in my pond. Today I have somewhere between 3 and 4 thousand off spring. Have only tried to cull them in one pool .Wanted red jet swords .Half black half red . After 25 years that is the one strain I do not have lol.
    The majority are still red wag, red velvet ,yellow. pineapple,green all with or without the black fins .
    I find this interesting as obviosly inbreeding does not lead to sterility or deformity. Even if you only figure 3 generations per year that's still 75 generations!!
    Another point to this is the original red sword was a green sword x red platy because red does not occur in swords. Since the original was a hybrid to start with why have thet all not reverted back to green swords or red platies?? Those are still way in the minority.
    I realise that swords and platies are obviously not two species but different forms of the same . Any thoughts on this??? gary

  • 19 years ago

    Woe:

    Someone was offering zebra oto's on Aquabid last week.

    Right now, my seemingly unlimited breeders are Gold Endlers. I spotted some golds in with the wild normals, so I isolated them and the next thing I knew, I had several tanks full of them.

    But my next attempt will be Galaxy Rasboras. I have a long 20 set up for them, with sand over flourite, very densly planted and currently being made ready with some Indian Almond leaves, a bunch of sex happy Habrosus corys and a colony of red cherry shrimps, even more sex crazed than the cory's.

    I get a real kick out of trying to get my fish to breed in more natural conditions. Yanking a pair out of their happy homes and dumping them into a breeding tank bores me, and probably pis--s the h--l out of the fish.

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