Peckoltia brevis (La
Monte, 1935) |
his is an ideal community catfish
as it is quite a hardy character living quite happily in different
water conditions as long as they are not too extreme and they are
aclimatised slowly to them. They are not too happy when the nitrates
rise to an unacceptable level, so keep the water changes up if you
experience high levels, or plant heavily as they don't seem to harm
plants.
The fish in question in the above
photograph is a male as you can just see the short odontodes (spines)
covering the front edge of the pectoral fins and parts of the
main body just behind the gill plates, these spines run the full
length of the body, they also produce them on the hard rays of
the caudal fin. The females are devoid of this character and I
find that they are not quite as colourful as the males, being
that bit darker.
There are about a dozen species in this genera and most of them
are very difficult to put a name to species ratio due to the work
still to be done on the Peckoltia genus, plus the genus
Hemiancistrus is also very much alike. The colour pattern
tends to go from a spotted head to brown bands on a lighter coloured
background.
To sum up, Peckoltia brevis is an
ideal loricariid catfish as they are quite peaceful with their
own kind, easier to keep, and usually cheaper to buy than some
of their L- number companions that are around at the present time.
The only problem is finding them in the aquatic outlets as all
the new L-numbers seem to be more popular (and costlier), so the
best bet would be to pick them up, if you are lucky, in one of
the fish auctions that abound throughout the U.K.
Elongated, evertible cheek odontodes.Three
predorsal plates. Abdomen entirely covered in small plates. Five
rows of plates on the caudal peduncle. The teeth are not specialized.
Colour pattern typically consists of a spotted
head and fins and dark saddles or bars on a tan body (the bars may
be somewhat broken giving a more mottled appearance)
They like their own territory in the aquarium
as males will sometimes spar with other males, but usually nothing
comes of this confrontation as long as they have their own caves,
be it PVC pipes, ceramic pots or even under flat stones that have
been built up on the substrate.
Not easy. Good water quality and water changing
at the right time. They lay their eggs in caves (pipes) and the
male guards them for about 10 days. The feeding of courgette (zucchini)
and peas taken out of their shell seems to be a precondition for
the successful spawning of the Peckoltia genus. For further
reading, check out the Tropical Fish Hobbyist, August 1998 for an
article by Larry Vires named, Advanced Plecology.
As mentioned above, they love courgette (zucchini),
half cook them, sliced, in a pot of water and then frozen for future
use. They are also partial to peas now and again. I find they are
not a great algae eater like their Chatasoma cousins. I feed
also algae wafers and tablet food, they are also keen on frozen
bloodworm. Not a hard species to feed as again they are not too
fussy.
Allan James @
 |
Brazil, in the Rio Purus and the
Rio Jurua.
