Aspidoras raimundi C125 "Red"

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.¹ The 2022 revision of the genus folded A. spilotus and A. menezesi into it, which is why this fish has been sold under three or four different names over the years.² C125 is the trade code that stuck.

The "Red" is a strain, not a place. It appeared spontaneously in a German breeder's tanks about a decade ago among ordinary wild-coloured C125 offspring and has been stable ever since.³ Wild-type fish are a mottled grey-brown. There's no locality data for the red form because there isn't any to have.

What there is, is the fish. Aspidoras have a reputation for being twitchy and hard to see because they blend in - these never got that memo. 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? Bred here in Eugene, Oregon. If you want a bottom fish you'll actually watch, this is the one.

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

2. 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.

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