Whiptail Long shot

[Baccus]

I know it might be a bit of a long shot, but I am hoping somebody might be able to identify this female whiptail. I think she might be a Sturisoma species but no idea which one or even if she maybe a hybrid. All I think I can safely rule out is her being a Royal Whiptail. She is probably around two years old now, and when I purchased her she was only fairly young.

If I can I really want to try and track down a male for her, since she is full of eggs and I want to attempt breeding her even if it is just to relieve the egg situation.

Full body picture from side

 

Full body picture from above

 

Close up of Tail

 

Close up of mid-body

 

Close up of mouth

 

I hope somebody can please help find this lovely girl a mate

 

 

 

[NoGi]

Stunning photos, did you ever identify it?

[jc12]

Is she a LG6?


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[Baccus]

Sadly I have never really managed to pin down just what breed she is. The shop that I got her from only recalls buying some locally bred ones ages ago, but cant recall who off.

[zn30]

20 hours ago, jc12 said:

Is she a LG6?

Beautiful dark markings and colouring, I'm in the same mind as @jc12 more than likely a LG6. 

[jc12]

My LG6s were all hiding when I got home so couldn't take a pic but yeah, pretty certain it is an LG6. I'm sure @s1l3nt would be able to ID her. LG6 is a pretty awesome fish.

Hope you find her a friend.

[Baccus]

So here is a recap of the type of whiptail I was chasing,

Today I was lucky and happened to be in Gladstone and went to the shop I originally got the whiptail from (but had never had any since then) and low and behold I looked in his tanks and spied first one and then more whiptails scattered amongst peppered corydoras, black ghost knife fish and a couple of female fighters. Of course I made the snap decision then and there to purchase at least a couple. I decided to increase my chances of getting a male and got 4 new young whiptails. Now it is just a case of keeping my fingers crossed.

The new guys

 

 

[Baccus]

I saw 3 of the 4 new young whiptails this morning but only one was really in a position for easy photography. They seem to be settling in and beginning to colour up.

 

 

 

Shortly after taking the last photo the brown shrimp you can see wondered over closer to the whiptail and for all the world it looked like the shrimp was telling the whiptail just who was tank boss.

[zn30]

Good find @Baccus now to grow them up, hopefully you are successful with these they are beautiful catfish, good luck, I never was able to get mine to breed had them 2007/2010.

[s1l3nt]

Epic delay from me but yes I agree with above they are LG6 (also often ID as Foerschi) whiptails :) Your oldest/first one looks like a nice fat female :)

Hope you have bred htem, they are a beautiful fish! They need ot be about 7-8cm minimum and fat. Males are more thin in the body and usually have a slightly pointed nose. I find the whiskers on the lip don't show until they are 10-12cm. They spawn in open sapce, no need for caves/pipes/etc. I spawned mine in a completley empty tank except a sponge filter. The male would sit on the eggs under the filters shadow always. Every 15 days or so, on the dot. I really really miss these guys and will be hitting up anyone who has them soon!! :)

P.s. these guys are a meat eater unlike some other whiptails, their foods for best condition should be higher protein foods 80%+ of their foods. They LOVE live black worms.

These are my favourite whiptail, and one of my favourite fish. They have the coolest eggs of any fish IMO, they are a lime green colour and quite large! :)

[Baccus]

Thanks for the extra info. There are/ was a good sized colony of blackworms in the tank and every so often I still see a few blackworms I dislodge when shifting stuff around in the tank. I guess the whiptails are living it up eating any of the worms they happen to find, but thankfully they don't seem to show the slightest bit of interest in the shrimp in the tank. Just a shame they aren't interested in Malaysian Trumpet Snails, because I could feed the whiptails on them indefinantly on that food source.

Currently I feed the whiptails, Tetramin tropical fish flakes, algae wafers, catfish wafers, shrimp pellets (sinking catfish pellets) and any defrosted bloodworms that I get for the other fish/ tanks. They would also be getting the odd mosquito wriggler since my tanks are outside in the car shed and have open tops. Every so often when I find bloodworms in any tubs of water in the yard I do add live bloodworms to the tanks too.

[Baccus]

After observing the young whiptails for a while I am actually wondering if one of them is what is often called snubnosed in other catfish L species. One of the young ones seems to have a blunt nose rather than a more pointed one. I guess it could just be a young female and the other 3 that seem to have normal faces could be male but the odds seem off in getting 3 males out of a random batch of 4.

After doing some reading preliminary reading it appears that the snubnosed condition could be an environmental condition over a genetic condition. Sadly I have no information on where these 4 whiptails where bred or the conditions they where kept in prior to me getting them from the pet shop. But if the one that I think might be suffering from snubnose does have it I have hopes that with good water conditions/ parameters it will still produce healthy fry if they ever get around to breeding.

[Baccus]

This is one of the normal looking whiptails that I got in the batch of four

And this is the little guy I think has the snubnose issue, he also seems to have a slight head tilt going on but its not visable in the pictures only when hes looking straight at you.

 

[s1l3nt]

I have no idea in regards to snubnose condition being a form of disease or similar, but that whiptail nose does look quite different to any other i've seen... It does appear to be an LG6 however. So i'd have to agree with you in that it has some issue which is causing this "snubnose". Sorry I can't help much outside of that... :(