hi all thought i'd just show u our new addition , we fell in love with him/her at our LFS and had 2 have it, he's about 3 inches long and we named him pluto jnr he was labled as a RED PLEC but ive never herd of 1 of these before lol

2 me he just looks like a comman sailfin (L001 i think ) nietherless he is beutiful

jen

This post has been edited by JenCliBee: Jun 2 2008, 05:22 PM

looks like a common to me to

You have 3 things mixed up into one here.

A Sailfin (which is what it looks like to me) is Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps
A Common plec is Pterygoplichthys pardalis / Hypostomus punctatus
An L001 is Pterygoplichthys joselimaianus

Also looks like a Sailfin to me too!

Edit: Could be a young Para, or a L147, or L346

This post has been edited by andywatson29: Jun 3 2008, 09:58 AM

My mistake about the L001 i just read that it's ment 2 be a gold spot pleco

as 2 the other 2

a sailfin can only be a gibbycep then
or
cant u have a sailfin comman plec

alot of places show my plec as a comman plec where others show it as a gibby lol

so wot is correct im no expert on plecs

jen

That's the thing with common names! It can be absolutely anything under the sun.
However, in general, a sailfin is certainly not a common plec. Though sailfins are very common - if that makes sense!

So hope you're ready for a huge and fast growing (though beautiful) fish

yeh sort of makes sense lol

and yes i am very ready for the size it could and most probably will get

i had 1 before in my last 80gallon tank which was around 13 inches long but i will totally agree beautiful fish

thanx for ur reply

jen

This post has been edited by JenCliBee: Jun 3 2008, 08:45 PM

I'm 100% sure that the pleco is a sailfin/gibby, looks just like my one when i first bought it as a juvenile . Its weird, but i've seen quite a lot of sailfins being sold under the name of "Red" pleco recently.

this pleco is a gibby. did you pay anything extra for the fish?

i wouldn't go by common names these days, but the L-numbers seem to be getting thrown around too now!

nah i paid £6 for him i mesured him properly and he's around 4inches so prob a little cheaper than normal but i had an idea that there was no such thing as a red plec anyways and wouldnt have paid over the odds for a comman or gibby anyways

jen

What exactly do you mean?

I would guess that we're seeing more people coming on saying 'the LFS said it was an L### but it looks more like an L###'

I was under the impression that the L numbers were there as a semi-temporary label while the scientific name was confirmed, now they've kinda stuck because they're easier to type/say. So whereas originally they were only used by those who had a good understanding of the plec species/genus structure they're now being used by general fishkeepers (like myself) who find them an easier way to communicate, however I'm also more likely to get them wrong because my knowledge of the different species isn't that great. So while they're still better than common names I wouldn't necessarily trust one written on the label of a LFS tank!

well the common names seem to be given to like several different pleco species so the L-numbers were brought into play to give a more accurate way to establish exactly what you have.
the system worked for a while but now the L-numbers have just been given out, just like the common names, so people sometimes don't know exactly what they have by the L-number.