Aspidoras raimundi C125 "Red"

Lots of fish hide. Not these. They are out in the open, at the front of the glass, moving constantly, and they do it as a group. And they are the red that O. hephaestus wishes it was. Who is the fireball?

The "Red" is a strain, not a place. It appeared spontaneously in a German breeder's tanks over a decade ago among ordinary wild-coloured C125 offspring and has been stable ever since.¹ Wild-type fish are a mottled grey-brown. There's no locality data for the red form because there isn't any to have.

This one isn't a conservation project, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Aspidoras raimundi is common and widespread across the drainages of northeastern Brazil, and it's listed Least Concern.² It's been sold under three or four different names over the years - a 2022 revision folded A. spilotus and A. menezesi into it³ - but C125 is the trade code that stuck.

Bred here in Eugene, Oregon. If you want a bottom fish you'll actually watch, this is the one.

1. Aquarium Glaser. Aspidoras raimundi C125 Red. Fish archive.

2. IUCN (2018). Aspidoras raimundi. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

3. Tencatt, Britto, Isbrücker & Pavanelli (2022). Taxonomy of the armored catfish genus Aspidoras (Siluriformes: Callichthyidae) revisited, with the description of a new species. Neotropical Ichthyology, 20(3): e220040.