BRISTLENOSE CATFISH - PEPPERMINT - STARLIGHT

G' Day,

Can anyone explain the difference between the Peppermint and Starlight Catfish? I have several of what i was told were Peppermint! To me looking at the photo close ups I can't tell the difference! the tank is also lousy with CRS.

I have been advised to move the BN to a smaller tank currently they are in a 400litre tank and the suggested other tank is aprox 75litre. There are three (3) colonies of 2 female to 1 male, a total of 9 adults altogether!

I have also been told that they prefer dirty water, and I have mine set up as a display tank with clean active water?

Any advise is welcome!!!

ianp213

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm The pepps i cant help with.

9 adults in a 75lt tank to me is too small. there will be fights between the males & trying to keep the tank clean will be a pain. its suggested 1.5-2ft of space per male.

I am not sure what you mean by "dirty" water. Mine, because of the tannins from the wood, has a yellow/brown tinge to the water. But with a blue or black background you wont notice it. But if you are referring to the water actually being dirty with dirt and food matter - nope most will not tollerate it too well as bacteria and parameters will be haywire

ok, so the difference between a peppermint and a starlight. Peppermints are an Australian thing. Since the pleco ban came into place here in the late 70s we have only had a few different types of bristlenose. There may have been one to two similar types of 'peppermint' style bristlenose here but they have all been bred together and have become a distinct different type of bristlenose. While very similar to the starlight they are slightly different, generally they are not as jet black and the spotting is less defined and there is less of it. One might consider them to be like the inbred cousin of the starlight.

Second, they like 'dirty water'. Hrmm, this is a tricky question because it depends what they mean by dirty water. Yes, if you look at the amazon river it is very 'drity'. it carries a huge sediment load and you can't see more than a few cms through it. However, if you remove the suspended sediment then you realise it is actually very clean water. It is basically muddy rain water which is very low in disolved organics, salts and other nasties. So, they do come from dirty water sure, but does this mean you should throw a ball of wet clay into your tank...hell no! Keep your water as clean as possible. Put it this way, I'm a 26 year old male, I CAN live in a unit with clothes piled up high against the walls, dishes stacked up in the sink, old macdonalds wrappers blowing around and only having small trails through all the junk to get through the unit BUT I would rather live in a 5 star hotel where there is not a speck of dust and someone cleans it every day for me.

9 bristlenose in 75ltr tank. WAY TOO MANY!! however, 9 in the 400ltr tank is fine. If you have the smaller one then i would move one male and two females into it to see if they will breed for you. Def dont move them all. Peppermints and starlights are slightly more agressive that common bristlenose and will become more territorial that the commons.

hope that helps

Just off the top of my head I think the two that they refer to as Starlight Pleco are a L182 and L183 and with the L182 from what I am led to believe will grow up to about 25cm and the L183 I believe have a white seam that remains with them where as the Aussie ones are smaller than L182 and the looses the white seam when they grow out into adults. I hope it ok to put a link http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=1249 this is the ones that I believe we have in Australia.