Peckoltia pankimpuju “L350”

Order: Siluriformes
Suborder: Loricarioidei
Family: Loricariidae
Subfamily: Hypostominae
Genus: Peckoltia
Species: Peckoltia pankimpuju, Lujan & Chamon, 2008

The true genus of this pleco is still discussed, where some people tend to put this species into the genus Hemiancistrus, others prefer to put it into Ancistrini (a collective of plecos with unknown genus). It is for sure, that "L350" doesn't show typical traits of its current genus and so it's up to a revision, of where to truely put this fish.

"L350" is a very special and rare fish in the hobby. Its appearance doesn't really match with any other described pleco species. With its long and elegant body but still an overall robust built head, this fish looks like a mash-up of Panaque and Pterosturisoma. It shows long filaments on the caudal and a long pointy dorsal fin. The body is covered with rough skin plates, which can develop odontodes in the tail region. Also on the hard rays of the pectorals and the gills are odontodes visible. Another special trait of this fish are its really small eyes, which leads to the believe this pleco doesn't rely on its eye-sight in the deep and dark water of its habitat.

Its overall body coloration is black. The belly is mostly black to grey and can show white patches. There are several leucistic animals known, which turned their whitisch-yellow coloration back to black in captivity.

Even though literature describes this fish with a maximum length of 13 cm, this fish can grow over 35 cm. With filaments included, this fish can even grow longer than 40 cm. It is a sturdy and territorial fish, which can show slight aggressions towards other plecos and its own kind. The behaviour is compareable with Panaque. This species tends to be really sensitive to light and prevers to sit in darker areas of the tank and comes only out on iluminated places to eat. They prefer rocky surfaces to sit on and don't like to use ceramic caves.

Peckoltia pankimpuju comes from Peru. This fish is found in several rivers connected to the Amazon system. Rio Huallaga by Tingo María, Rio Marañón at the Pongo de Manseriche, and the Rio Ucayali  are known catching locations of this fish.

Especially the Pongo the Manseriche is a well known river gorge which the Marañón passes draining east into the Amazon River. It is a narrow and deep gorge with very strong and fast streaming current, with big rocky boulders as substrate and river banks. The water there is highly oxygenated but rather rich in sediments (white water) and therefore doesn't let much light trough it. The temperature in this river ranges from 23 - 27°C.

Habitats closer to the Amazon tend to be on the warmer side of this scale. This fish is therefore not really sensitive to a certain temperature in captivity, as long as it stays in the range of 23 - 28°C. Own observations showed that the fish are more active during warmer water temperatures and also show then a deep black coloration as also no signs of stress.

Since there is not much known about this species in general, also the exact diet of this fish in the wild is still unknown. The teeth of this fish represent tools for a more carnivorous diet. This could be dead fish, crustaceans, molluscs, insects and their larvae and so on.

In captivity "L350" is not picky and eats frozen food like, shrimps, mussels, artemia, mosquito larvae, but also processed food like granules, flakes and sticks. Since this fish also likes to eat green sticks and flakes, we believe P. pankimpuju is an omnivore with a tendency towards animal proteins. We feed mostly Snail, Krill, Manabi and Plankton soft granules as also Regular and Chlorella from Dr. Bassleer Biofish Food. Also bigger sticks like the Carnivore Sticks are being accepted very well.

P. pankimpuju grows to a large size and shows a territorial behaviour. To keep a group of them without problems, tanks from minimum 120-150 cm length are needed. Smaller specimens don't need of course directly as much space.

As substrate anything from gravel to sand can be used. This fish needs hiding spots in form of big stones, stone slates, driftwood pieces and bigger ceramic caves. Ceramic caves are only accepted when they are big enough. These fish still prefer to sit on a rocky surface on a shadowy place with a good current blowing through it.

The tank should be filtered good via internal, external or HMF filters. Bubble stones help with oxygenating the water. "L350" is really dependant on oxygen in the water. Observations in our tanks showed, that ones the filters and streaming pumps are turned off (for cleaning purposes), "L350" doesn't wait a minute to swim towards the surface to swallow athmospheric oxygen. Therefore also a streaming pump should be integrated which diffuses the oxygen better in the water.  This fish lives in its habitat in really fast streaming currents, which should at least tried to be recreated in the tank. Additional to filter and streaming pump an internal heater should be integrated, to heat the water up to 23 - 28 °C.

Water changes of minimum 50% a week are neccessary to keep this fish healthy and happy. This fish also works great in community tanks, if the parameters are given. Just take care not to put it together with to sensitive fish, that can be harmed by the harsh and sturdy territorial behaviour of P. pankimpuju. Other Plecos of its size are in most cases great tank mates.

There is so far not much known about the sexual differences of this fish. Some people report of males being more "hairy" once a year in the tail area, how it is known of many Peckoltia species. Also a more curvy body shape is being expected with gravid females. Odontodes on the gills and pectorals are probably shown by both male an female.

There are no information about how this species reproduces and which parameters are neccessary to get it into breeding mood. It is possible, that this fish spawns on substrate like most plecos, but it doesn't exclude the possibility of it being a free spawning species.