The „Full Spotted Royal Pleco“ belongs to the very attractive members of the wood-feeding genus Panaque. The species attains a maximum size of about 40 cm. Sadly in young fish the adult coloration cannot become even guessed, they are striped, like many other members of the genus. Only in halfgrown fish the spotted pattern has developed. We were able again now to import some 15 cm long (standard length, without tailfin) respectively 19 cm (total length, inclusive tailfin) long specimens of L330 from Colombia.
It is very interesting that these only halfgrown fish show some obvious sexual differences. A specimen with a yellow stripe in the caudal fin is – accoding to shape of head and body when looked from top – obviously a male, while the most likely female counterpart has only yellow corners of the caudal fin.
Sadly these comparatively large fish caused a kind of sand storm in the photo tank. Even after the water has been cleared there were attached to the mucus of the body sand particles. So please don´t worry, our fish don´t have an ick (Ichthyphthirius), but only harmless sand granules.
For our customers: the fish have code 26480-L 330-7 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively suppyl the wholesale trade. Only very few specimens available!
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
