Long Fin Lace Ancistrus 

  We acquired these beauties from a friend, Robert Smith, from Texas. Robert knew we like plecos and said he found a guy that raised these pleco’s and wanted to know if we would be interested in getting some. He described them rather poorly and said they had about a two inch dorsal fin on them. As they were rather expensive and since he was coming to visit, we said we would take 6 of them. When we got them, we couldn’t believe how beautiful they were and asked if we couldn’t get more. He hooked us up with the guy and I called him. Wouldn’t you know it he had just sold out . This was in May and he said to call him back in August and he would have more. I anxiously waited until August 1 and gave him a call. He said funny you should call he was going to take his adults to Houston tomorrow and sell all he had. Now I was getting excited. I asked him how many he had and he said 40. After a little negotiating, I, excuse me, I mean we ( Monica had to give her approval ), we came to a figure between 1-2 thousand and agreed to buy them. He said he would throw in 12 small ones he had to cover the shipping and for buying them all. We put 8 of the 2.5” “fry” up for auction and got over $320.00 for them so I guess he more than covered the freight.  I can honestly say the picture doesn’t really capture all their beauty. They breed just like a normal Ancistrus. The guy we bought them from said they bred in Rhino type caves, one on top of the other. We put these caves in the breeders tanks along with the “Boester’s pleco bells” and they have always chosen the bells to breed in. If this isn’t enough, we are getting a few albino’s out of one of the group’s we are breeding. Hope they turn out to be longfins also but they are too small to tell yet.

Update: we now have several of them spawning and 4 of the trio's are throwing albino longfins although only roughly 15% are coming out as albino with long fins. 

Update: We now spawn regularly long fin albinos. 

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