Epiphanaea

I am not certain, but I think he may be pseudogastromyzon changtingensis. I’m trying to find an email for a relevant expert to confirm, or else a good identification key online. No luck on either so far.

This is Sesame, as in Sesame Street, because he was in with the “butterfly loaches” at Petco and, well, one of these things was not like the other ones. In the store, with bonus photobombing mollies, and in quarantine: ~~~~ and now:

You seem to have a lot of knowledge on this species - are they actually endangered, or just uncommon in the aquarium trade? If he’s something truly rare I’d make an effort to get him(or her? Would need to determine that) a mate. The hillstreams aren’t much smaller than the pleco at this point, and since I made this post I discovered that they’d spawned in the tank I’d just taken them out of (the two I could catch, anyway - there’s been a lot of shuffling. I have more tanks than intended, my house is not large, and I am far from wealthy.

And besides, I love my little spotted nom-noms (yes, I like nicknaming things).

LOL, well, if these fry survive, there will be available velociraptor slugs in a few months.

Yup, I need to correct the post title. Yours are what I intend to breed, the ones above are the result of a long yet boring story that can be abbreviated to “I am a sap and hate dealing with unfriendly salespeople.” I have some like yours too, they were all in one tank, the skinnier ones were bullying the flatter ones, I was trying to separate them and surprise, fry! The one, single, solitary description of gastromyzon fry I could find said they do start out cylindrical so I wasn’t positive - but I found some video of pseudogastromyzon fry and they’re identical to what I’ve got.

After some more digging online, it is almost certainly pseudogastromyzon, of which I have two species, 3 of one and 1 of another. The group of three were acquired because I thought they were a gastromyzon species, and the singular one because he(?) didn’t look like any fish I’d seen before and was all kinds of distressed in the store. I’m pretty sure the solo fish is pseudogastromyzon changtingensis, while the others look vaguely like several species and exactly like none. I think they look kind of like the offspring of a Jurassic Park style velociraptor and a slug, and have been referring to them as such, but this is not a formal designation. The fry look most like the changtingensis, but - there’s one of those? And they’re not livebearers, so couldn’t have come to me already pregnant. Which leave hybridization or parthenogenesis. Or them being the other species, of course. We’ll see. I have half of the pseudogastromyzon moved into a different tank because they were bullying the gastromyzon, and those are what I really intended to breed. Half because the little bleeps are impossible to catch. The possible parents - one of which is hanging out near the fry, and I’m not sure if I’m seeing parenting or attempted cannibalism. There are only a few fry. This is Sesame (like Sesame Street, because one of these things is not like the other ones): And these are some of the unnamed ‘triplets’, aka the velociraptor slugs, who I can’t tell apart most of the time:

So that was easier than anticipated. I don’t know if these are gastromyzon or pseudogastromyzon, and I discovered them because I disturbed them while vacuuming the gravel! I had not even entertained the possibility that there could be fry yet. Hopefully I didn’t suck up any. It seems more likely they are pseudogastromyzon, since there are more records of those breeding in captivity, but I can’t find pics online of either at this stage so who knows? They’re about 4mm, and hanging out under the sponge covering the filter intake, so very high flow area. Food and waste also collect there. That end of the tank is also likely a little warmer, as the larger filter generates some heat. Room temp is around 70F, tank is probably a degree or two warmer due to the filter - did I mention I wasn’t watching this all that closely yet? I only have dipstick readings, I just did a water change, and I was trying to get the pH and mineral content in general up, since that seems to be key to keeping these guys happy. Per my dipsticks, pH 6.8 - 7, GH 25, KH 40, TA 40 - but again, those are all lower than intended and lower than I had been keeping the tank / the quarantine tank they were in before generally. Based on what I sucked out of the gravel and the presence of detritus worms, I was overfeeding, plus *so many bladder snails* all pooping, so that was messing things up. The adults getting mostly spirulina flakes, and frozen daphnia a couple times a week. Algae is just starting to take off in the tank, no idea on species - some mossy stuff, some hairy stuff. Tank was infused with whatever random infusoria I’ve been culturing from a local pond, the microscope I ordered from Amazon sucked and is being returned, so again I am clueless, but I can see cyclops and there were scuds in the culture jar. I didn’t introduce any visible scuds and haven’t seen any, but microscopic fry are a possibility. There are an abundance of bladder snails, breeding as they do, so plenty of newly hatched snails to munch on if they’re into that. I also have ghost shrimp in the tank, one of which was pregnant with eggs developing nicely, but then no fry. They could have failed to hatch, but they also could have been eaten by the loach fry - I think probably not, they’d be too big, but it’s possible. So. Yeah. I fail as a scientific observer, because what the heck, fish, you’re supposed to be hard to breed and it’s been less than a month! But, fish babies.

GUYS. Excuse the crappy photos, but FISH BABY! I suspect it’s a pseudogastromyzon, not the gastromyzon, but still exciting!

Welp, guess I’m finding a flat surface for another tank. He’s got a fat little belly, most of the time, just eating algae and diatoms and whatever the goldfish don’t eat. The substrate is large river rock that he can slip between, so he can get at stuff they can’t. I tried feeding algae wafer in his cave exactly once, when the goldfish were smaller, though still considerable larger than him. They wanted that algae wafer too. Apparently, *you do not mess with the cave.* There was a rumble, and the goldfish came out the worse for it, despite the size difference. There were some scales lost.

Petco. This one local Petco gets all the improbable things in. He didn’t look like this when I got him, though, he was kinda beige and generally unremarkable. This is him just a couple months ago.

The goldfish tank tends to hold around 68F in the winter, about 72F in summer. Could occasionally get as cold as 64 overnight or as hot at 76 if my air conditioning can’t keep up with the weather. It’s a 40g breeder. The upstairs tank runs a little colder, but steadier. You think the cold is keeping him small?

So I bought 2 fancy goldfish and a “rubberlip pleco” at roughly the same time. Pleco has turned out to be a bloodfin bulldog pleco, L276, which is pretty cool. One goldfish, the black moor, is a normal Petco goldfish, though very well-proportioned and pretty. About 4” at 1 year. Then there’s the calico fantail, who is very in touch with her carp heritage. She’s over 6”. 3” in body alone. And still not really adult-shaped. This is the *younger* of the two fish, she’s under a year. And she eats anything and everything. The pleco, meanwhile, is 2 1/2” or so. I am beginning to worry about him becoming a snack. He’s s tough little thing, but even so. The internet tells me he should top out at 6”, which would be fine for a goldfish tankmate, but he’s growing a lot more slowly than the goldies. Space has become an issue, so his living options are: -continue with the goldfish, hope he doesn’t look tasty - put him in with the hillstreams of unidentified species who are probably pseudogastromyzon? 20g long unheated high flow tank. I’d have to add a cave for him, but that shouldn’t be an issue. - put him in with the betta smaragdina male. Blackwater 10g, about 75F, low flow. I think this is probably a terrible idea but throwing it out there. - get him his own 10g to grow in and eventually re-introduce to the goldfish tank. I do not have a flat surface to fit any larger tank than that. Thoughts? The little conundrum himself - his name is Pancake.

Thank you! That’s good to know.