New BN, hoping for a positive ID.

Wasn't planning on getting a BN tbh, but ya know, cute little faces and all. I just up'd my 29H to a 37 hex. Loaded it up with wood and plants from top to bottom. I got my Clown pleco in there and of course, he is loving all new caves and wood to munch on. I debated it for awhile, meaning about a month, and thought i would try to find a female clown. My LFS keeps just about every weird fish I can think of. The guy who runs the fish area imports fish from everywhere(His "normal" fish would be Blue kerri danio, albino knife fish, green otocinclus and royal plecos). Great guy with a strange taste in fish. So when I got there he only had 2 clown plecos and unfortunately they both looked pretty male to me. I happened across one of the walls though and he had BNs in every tank. There were albinos, vieltails, big, small and so on, a few different species too. I was going to get an albino, but he had one in another tank that was roughly 7" long and yeah, no(not sure what species since he got a "variety pack").

Annnnyways, I ended up somehow bringing home a larger boy. He is around 5" long. Quickly found out that clowns can be total brats regardless of how many pieces of wood(7) and caves(13) there are for them. Unfortunately for him, 5" BN trumps 3" clown. They seem to have worked everything out.

Mostly i need an ID so i can figure out max size, and what portions of his pattern are normal and what is a bad sign. Obviously he is a little stressed but he seems to be well settled in, eating well and such. Not shy at all.

This is when I first put him in 2days ago

His belly was a little red but it is more yellow/white now.

This is 2 hours after that


Yesterday morning(24 hours in the tank)


And now


Obviously, white spots/patches have developed extremely fast. They could be seen when i bought him but he was really faded, a few other plecos had similar patches. The red area behind his head had me a little concerned too. I have had 2 male albinos before though, they both had red areas just like that. Some sources are saying that is just a male thing? Ignore the redness to his overall being, the water is heavy with tannins right now and all my fish look red in the pics due to the flash(except for my red brick swordtail, he looks fabulous).

Im pretty sure he looks like a pie-bald common or something like that. I was on PC and the only person who responded said just a normal common with stress spots. I know they get stress patches on their skin that look faded, i didn't think these looked like that. I suppose it's possible though.

Hi and welcome to Bristlenoseworld Your fish is a male common or calico/piebald bristlenose or a cross of the two.The colouring of the first 2 pictures is a stress colouring but now he is slowly getting his natural colour back.The patches are all normal colouration and so is the red spot on to top his head.At 5 inches he may well be at full size but it is possible he could grow another inch or even 2.


Bristlenoses

Thanks for the welcoming. He is a cute little devil. He looks spot on like a calico or a mix or such, I know common BN's have been bred to have a ton of morphs in varying degrees. I thought calico was just a morph of the common?

Yes he is a common bristlenose,sorry for the confusion in my reply.What i was refering to was the colouration.He is either Calico/piebald or a cross of Calico/piebald and common(common colouration) hope this clears it up.


Bristlenoses

Ok, i see, just checking on that . Well, at least i can stop worrying about the various white patches now eh? I'm just glad he's a pacifist when it comes to my clown pleco.