gold leapard sailfin?

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cudamaster13

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Aug 14, 2008
2,016
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southern california
awhile ago my lfs got in some large plecos that looked like leapard sailfins but they were were like yellow with the black spots is this a certain varient of the leapard sailfin or is it a different species and were am i likely to find one my lfs cant even get in regular sailfins it seems now i would love to have one:drool:
 
Well there are differently colored versions of both the pleco's I listed. They will vary from fish to fish, but there is little else I can do to answer your question without pics. Good luck...
 
not sure if this is similar to what you are describing, but depending on the lighting my sailfin (L083)has always had a goldish color base to him and dark spots as opposed to the typically honeycomb pattern of most sailfins. here is the most recent pic i have of him from about 3 or 4 months ago and 7" at the time.

IMG_0240.jpg


he was a $6 "hifin spotted pleco" from petsmart when i got him about a year ago.

IMG_2026-1.jpg


be careful though, petsmart also sells p. joselimaianus (L001)under the same name, they look like this.

IMG_0208.jpg
 
not sure if this is similar to what you are describing, but depending on the lighting my sailfin (L083)has always had a goldish color base to him and dark spots as opposed to the typically honeycomb pattern of most sailfins. here is the most recent pic i have of him from about 3 or 4 months ago and 7" at the time.

IMG_0240.jpg


he was a $6 "hifin spotted pleco" from petsmart when i got him about a year ago.

IMG_2026-1.jpg

These are different from the standard sailfin and have been called marbled sailfins. Their pattern is more broken then a normal sailfin and it seems their fins are more rounded where as the normal sailfin fins are pointed. It's very easy to think they are the same. I've had both at the same time before in the same tank and they are different.

To Op:

I've seen pictures of gold colored Pterygoplichthys before. which could have been labeled as sailfins. Pterygoplichthys punctatus and Pterygoplichthys etentaculatus come to mind. The old world atlas of Catfish shows a good picture of a gold Pterygoplichthys etentaculatus. Planetcatfish doesn't show a good picture.
 
These are different from the standard sailfin and have been called marbled sailfins. Their pattern is more broken then a normal sailfin and it seems their fins are more rounded where as the normal sailfin fins are pointed. It's very easy to think they are the same. I've had both at the same time before in the same tank and they are different.

To Op:

I've seen pictures of gold colored Pterygoplichthys before. which could have been labeled as sailfins. Pterygoplichthys punctatus and Pterygoplichthys etentaculatus come to mind. The old world atlas of Catfish shows a good picture of a gold Pterygoplichthys etentaculatus. Planetcatfish doesn't show a good picture.

here is a picture of a "standard" sailfin i used to have, pictured at about 7" also. i think they are both L083, just different mutations. i've seen both labeled as sailfin, marbled sailfin, common, leapoard sailfin, etc... just a whole lot of names for the same fish, p. gibbiceps is the correct name for them all.

IMG_3182.jpg
 
here is a picture of a "standard" sailfin i used to have, pictured at about 7" also. i think they are both L083, just different mutations. i've seen both labeled as sailfin, marbled sailfin, common, leapoard sailfin, etc... just a whole lot of names for the same fish, p. gibbiceps is the correct name for them all.

Yea, most LFS don't care what they are called... a sailfin and a marbled sailfin are some of the worse to get mixed up. I've seen Marbled sailfins in books being called p. gibbiceps var. (short for variation)
 
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