reebok4190's new Altum Angels!!!

[raglan]

I enjoy questioning the views we have
and questioning the relationships between groups of angelfish.
and especially,
questioning the views of experts !

all the wild fish are quality, IMO. I have one altum that is a runt, yet it is the most aggressive feeders and the bravest, most inquisitive of the bunch.. I'd like to see it breed.
It was the last one sold of thousands imported that year.

dave

[reebok4190]

http://www.finarama.com/tba/identification.htm
bro, I don't expect spoon feeding, but had done some searches myself and found that what you have is the Pt Altums as like in "finarama" web page link as above.

I also has some altums same like yours bought couple months back october 08, now I am getting bit confuse if mine is it the real altums or not. . Cheers!

Don't be confuse, if you are getting from a reliable source and confirmed by a reliable indentification guide (eg.one of the site is www.finarama.com and etc.) And if each of everytime, a tom, a dick and a harry starts to make a comment and a mess of this hobby. Ignore it... If you enjoyed what you are keeping, its good enough. No point for you to verify, clarify, verify and clarify..in the end, you realised you are keeing Altum Angelfish but it died... Sure to spoil the fun of keeping a hobby. If you are happy with your fish, stay that way. For me, I am.That's why I ignore whatever discussion made, they have every rights to do so. Its forum but just don't ask me the way you did. You have great fun with your fishes, they are a beauty.

At the end of the day are we going after the quality of fish or going after pure breed fish.In my view,lets stop questioning about the defination of "Altum" and enjoy what we have.

It seems to see that a couple of Brothers mention that the Altum die even as fast as overnight for the new purchase,is it true that once it is stable it is really easy to up keep them?Look like a made it or break it case at the moment you put them into the new tank.

Well said, Mictok. Beside, other than having Altum Angels, i am also keeping Peruvian Angels. They are just as beautiful in their own rights. Anyway, they are wild fishes too. It just that they are more hardy and easy to accustom to our home tank than Altum Angel.

Altum Angels are abit more sensitive to water condition to their natural habitat. Nevertheless, These Altum Angel have somehow a "waiting period" before it actually settled down and becoming hardy. Usually, even on the 1st day they may eat well, it seems white slime will always developed and they start to be frightful. If you can help them tide this period, all is well. One time, i did a house renovation, I transferred my Altum with the water into another tank with alot of air aeration with external filter for 2 weeks. Despite some dust gather in the water, all are well. Of course, i do cover them too. As long you don't make drastic change in the water, you shouldn't have problem. One last thing, its always good to have them in big tank. So i shall look forward you keeping altum angel in the next season?
Cheers..and a Happy Holiday.!!!

[raglan]

Don't be confuse, if you are getting from a reliable source and confirmed by a reliable indentification guide (eg.one of the site is www.finarama.com and etc.) And if each of everytime, a tom, a dick and a harry starts to make a comment and a mess of this hobby. Ignore it... If you enjoyed what you are keeping, its good enough. No point for you to verify, clarify, verify and clarify..in the end, you realised you are keeing Altum Angelfish but it died... Sure to spoil the fun of keeping a hobby. If you are happy with your fish, stay that way. For me, I am.That's why I ignore whatever discussion made, they have every rights to do so. Its forum but just don't ask me the way you did. You have great fun with your fishes, they are a beauty.



Well said, Mictok. Beside, other than having Altum Angels, i am also keeping Peruvian Angels. They are just as beautiful in their own rights. Anyway, they are wild fishes too. It just that they are more hardy and easy to accustom to our home tank than Altum Angel.

Altum Angels are abit more sensitive to water condition to their natural habitat. Nevertheless, These Altum Angel have somehow a "waiting period" before it actually settled down and becoming hardy. Usually, even on the 1st day they may eat well, it seems white slime will always developed and they start to be frightful. If you can help them tide this period, all is well. One time, i did a house renovation, I transferred my Altum with the water into another tank with alot of air aeration with external filter for 2 weeks. Despite some dust gather in the water, all are well. Of course, i do cover them too. As long you don't make drastic change in the water, you shouldn't have problem. One last thing, its always good to have them in big tank. So i shall look forward you keeping altum angel in the next season?
Cheers..and a Happy Holiday.!!!

mine have jumped out a few times, hit a dirty floor, and no problems.
I've never had them get ill like that if they weren't subjected to a long transfer with water fouling and chilling, or got infected by careless transfer of germs from another tank that was ill.
Of course, I do things a bit differently from usual practice. I heat them up to 90 degrees with massive aeration and good bottom to top circulation ( sponge filter lift tubes), and do several WC per day with RO mixed with carbon filtered tapwater, if I know they have been severely challenged.
NO other fish in the quarantine.

[mictok]

mine have jumped out a few times, hit a dirty floor, and no problems.
I've never had them get ill like that if they weren't subjected to a long transfer with water fouling and chilling, or got infected by careless transfer of germs from another tank that was ill.
Of course, I do things a bit differently from usual practice. I heat them up to 90 degrees with massive aeration and good bottom to top circulation ( sponge filter lift tubes), and do several WC per day with RO mixed with carbon filtered tapwater, if I know they have been severely challenged.
NO other fish in the quarantine.

Your altum jump out?Quite a rare sight for me,I have never see an angle fish or discus jump out of tank before.Most of them time they just knock on tank or drift wood when frighten.

[raglan]

One jumped out about two feet, hit the wall and fell back in. Once one jumped out because I had the video cam on the desk. that tank of altum hated the camera.
Now that I have concentrated on taming them, they are like puppies...except if I turn off the lights when they are resting. Then then is a commotion in the tank, but they do not jump out any more.

They are known as crazy fliers in their their natural habitat, I understand, when they are hunted.
In the tank, they seem to jump more often if they are more closely confined , so that when they make their first wild dash, they hit the glass, then dash again and again., and out.

If they have enough room to complete the first dash, and then look about, they don't seem to get as agitated.
Dark objects are a source of fear for them, even a small book suddenly produced.

They get used to objects though. So it s only novel black objects or the object being moved form it's usual location, that scares them. My black German Shepherd never did alarm them much, he was there since the start. But the video cam was one of their worst fears, for some unkown reason, and only one tank was so fearful of it.

Now they let me bring it up close with not much problem.

[illumnae]

Your altum jump out?Quite a rare sight for me,I have never see an angle fish or discus jump out of tank before.Most of them time they just knock on tank or drift wood when frighten.

I lost one to jumping too Woke up in the morning to find it dried up on the floor.

[raglan]

One member of Finarama found one all dried up, but he put it in water and it lived, but had big missing areas of fins. I've rehydrated swordails that jumped and were pretty dried up. Swordtails seem to jump because they can, but angels only seem to jump out of fright.

[StanChung]

Reebock4190- those look like the real thing to me. I've kept some and not caught any like some explorer though.

From my armchair- the one thing the makes it look different from the 'Peruvian altums' are the faint stress bars. It's thicker than the 'Peruvian altums'. Pic of http://vitawater.ru/aqua/fish/papers/altum.shtml
P. scalare from this site looks very much like Altums don't you think?

Red eye or not, it seems there is a variation. Some have it some don't after seeing around 150 fishes from wild imports. [failing with many ]

The fins grow larger 'fans' as they age. So using this to compare with scalare is not a good way IMO.
I certainly would have thought the pic labelled P. scalare is an almost adult P. altum judging from the size of it's fin 'fans' but not yet prominent 'freckles'.
The P. altum pics are certainly juveniles.

I notice the pics are from Aquapress so you may draw your own conclusions.
[a running debate of course ]

From www.beautifulangels.net
http://www.beautifulangels.net/images/silver_veil.jpg a cross of something.

http://www.beautifulangels.net/wildangels.jpg wild scalares.

http://www.elacuarista.com/secciones...ar_concria.jpg not wild scalares.

http://www.aquatic-profiles.com/prof...Scalare001.jpg
This pic is really hard to differentiate except that the faint stress bar is thinner than real P. altums IMHO.

[derekchia]

http://www.aquatic-profiles.com/prof...Scalare001.jpg

This piece apearance is very close to Altum angel except the mouth portion.
Nice Angel fish

[raglan]

http://www.aquatic-profiles.com/prof...Scalare001.jpg

This piece apearance is very close to Altum angel except the mouth portion.
Nice Angel fish

It's a funny thing, observing and trying to decide, isn't it derekchia ? It looks generally a bit like altum, enough to be sold as altum, and people could buy it only to find out, if they ask around on different forums online, that it isn't, it's obviously not.
If you take any section of that fish pic, it doesn't match altum. All together, though, visually, generally, it is not so very far away from altum, as various wild or wild-descended-types of angelfish go.

Looking at the posterior edge of the tail fin, the arc is not the same arc as altum, for instance.
However, the tail has reddish-ocher stripes, so it bears a resemblance, in another characteristic , to altum tail.
Yet even on that tail fin striping, which is a "matching" characteristic, it is different from altum, in several ways.

Anyhow, the tools we have been given by the professionals are not sufficient ( even for those of us most familiar with altum ), to use in an attempt to draw any conclusions at all. That's "the bottom line", as far as I can tell !

We have to rely on having a good "eye" for the fish. I think the professionals operate under these same conditions or terms, and only confirm by factual basis what they already presume.
By "factual", I mean that they produce figures and ratios and so on through measurements of various types which confirm what they already have perceived before measuring.

And by "we", I mean both we hobbyists, as well as some people who we have knowledge of, people who have spent more time in the water with altum in various locations, than any foreigner has. Some are biologists, for all that that matters.

These other close observers of the fish, in nature, have noticed differences in the Orinoco populations too.

They consider the differences to be minor, so minor that if presented with only one fish, only the most experienced can discern differences in amount of variation in any characteristic of the type such as Heiko talks about in various Orinoco altum, in order to hazard reasonable guesses as to which population, which river, the fish came from.



I think lots of hobbyists might agree that, from our point of view, we can see differences fish to fish, of our own fish, and from owner to owner, tank to tank environments, but cannot see that there are differences which apply across the board, for any single fish picked out. Every altum characteristic is there, but to differing intensity or degree.



I also think most scientists and interested hobbyists consider all the Orinoco altum to be altum. Professor Taphorn, as well as other professors in various fields, call them Pterophyllum altum. So that makes it correct for any of us to consider all the Orinoco "altum-like" fish, as "Pterophyllum altum" at this time.

Heiko,

There is a problem, however, once "they" assign the perspective for us and themselves to view, that any particular difference can be considered '"insignificant", merely because of lack of a big variation from the norm. The specimens from various locations (or from the same location ) might look exactly the same, visually indistinguishable to ANYONE, and yet not interbreed in the wild.

Differences have been found using DNA barcoding, within a population - a flock of birds. When tracked, these birds that showed different DNA types chose similar mates. The flock was then divided up into several species.

"Species " is not the important word here. THE point is, that those different but visually-identical birds in the same flock, don't interbreed in the wild.


If we have fish that don't interbreed in the wild ( even if captured close together - or look virtually identical ), wouldn't that count , in our tank-breeding efforts ? ...and count as to if we consider it all one species or not ?

So far the other scientists together have the support of the widespread commoner observations on this fish, but Heiko may be correct in the end.


So an insignificant or zero variation from visual norm can be all the difference in the world - but conversely, a wide variation is not necessarily a significant difference.




Problems arise too, when measuring. We can see how the shape of the fish ( and thus lots of measurements and ratios ) may change during it's life from a baby altum import,till a 3 or 4 year old fish which is pairing off.

Even the characteristic altum notch ( one of the most recognizable landmarks ), is, for a good portion of the fish's life, less altumish than the notch on an older false altum.


Other problems arise because of environment that each fish and population faces during it's life, particularly in the egg to end of yolk absorbtion time. Different phenotypes arise then. e.g. fish that mature quickly, or later, depending particularly on conditions in early life. Body shapes and measurements and ratios therefore may be quite different, for fish of the same estimated age hatched in different dates in a season, or with yearly variations. This is apparently how they deal with varying conditions they meet upon entering life.
Not only that, but environmental conditions bind or tag the genetic material so that it is "permanently" changed, even in descendants. this is what the science of Epigenetics is finding out. What your grandfather had, feast or famine, as a teen ,may relate, seems to relate, in one population (studied long-term through birth death and cause of death records in context of good nutritional intake records) to your chances of developing diabetes. Same with what conditions the grandmothers had in utero. Scary. We're made to go back centuries in our understanding, to when they may have thought a trauma condition at birth or what you do as a teenager likely affects the grandchildren's phenotype and epigenetic state too. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3411/02.html



Back to altum vs. false altum:

Instead of looking at Volume # 3 first photo, of real vs, false altum, in the same tank, look at the false altum in the photo and attempt to discern what characteristics, and what differences in these characteristics, exist, between false altum and scalare.
It seems almost every characteristic that separates altum from scalare also separates this fish from scalare...though maybe to a different degree.
. My adult Rio Negro scalare share the tell-tale notch ridge, even though the dorsal slopes invilved are not like altum, and they are not even that close to altum-like fish. But they have the subtle ridge that drops down then almost becomes a fold, where it forms the indentation.

This problem - of characteristics ( not only variations in the characteristic) - not being exclusive signs of one species or other, it runs through everything in this problem.

http://www.hagen.com/pdf/aquatic/NUT...TIC_NEWS_3.pdf


Back to ID for a minute now. check volume 3 drawings, if you are attempting to ID fish from there, look at the false altum drawing ( Rio Negro #2 and it can be seen that...

this fish is not the fish in the tank photo as false altum . Also, the ventrals in the Wallace drawing are in a varied position compared to Volume 3 Drawing #2 ..using pectoral fin bottom of the join to the flank as a reference point.

And what a difference there is in dorsal profile, between the false altum in the tank, and Volume 3 Drawing #2 . the dorsal profile is so steep in the photo, and so steep in Wallace's drawing ! Not steep at all in volume 3.

What should this mean, as to our appraisal on "altum or not altum " , if using Volume 3 ? Not a complete dismissal. The other drawings are not far off on marking the landmarks , can help as general guide for species. It's not, however, usable, to help us see the differentiation Heiko has intended to make clearer.

...to be continued ?

Guys, we can do this like a wikifishia project, and Heiko, wouldn't it be a blast to do a fishywiki science lab on B.O.L.D. systems with your audiences, during your travels ...it costs not a whole lot to have our fish photographed measured and tested for barcode. Then compared and species differences estimated automatically by program, against scalare.

Just a piece of ventral fins or whatever. Even an expensive country costs only $60 for materials, $30 in cheaper countries. I'd certainly pay to have my kid involved in real science, bringing in preserved sample, and learning how the software handles the decisions !
What an education that would be. Personally, I'd pay multiple times the real costs so that my kid and two kids in a poor country could participate.



Let's start a little science revolution and bring in kids and everyone to real science. It would be something that no museum ever does. It could be not only for altum or wild scalares we have, but for sunfish or invasive goldfish, or gouramis or catfish, whatever kids can catch locally too! Plus it's not that tough sometimes to get a couple of known-chain-of-possession, exact and proper locale-recorded samples included for backup. We have fish friends like Ed and his pal Wil to pester. http://www.finarama.com/forum/viewto...?p=15359#15359


Seasons Greetings to everyone, and Have a Great Year ! Help our children learn to love science; they'll be needing it more than we did. We coasted.
Dave

[Heiko Bleher]

Hi dave,

just saw you long text now.

Just shortly: we are working on DNA of those I collected in Novemb/December and we will have some nice detailed photso so people can identify their P. altum on my home page soon. Just to busy with expeditions and conferences around thew orld (just came back a couple of days ago from India expedition) to keep it all up. So far the Philippine reserach abstarcts are in, the championships and lectures, now we will place abstracts of the two Amazon expedition, then the India expedition-abstract, the seminars and judging in Chennai...

All the best and thanks again,

always

Heiko
www.aquaptress-bleher.com

[raglan]

Hello, Heiko

I knew that of the scientists it had to be you to bring some evidence, no one else. I should say, again bring good modern evidence on these fish in the right light for the first time.
thanks always,
Dave

[stormhawk]

I took time going through that PDF with the articles by Heiko and the drawing done by Natasha. Very good drawing guide showing the different markings etc., but the pictures showing the "Rio Negro altum" and the real P. altum side by side, at first glance most people will tend to think they are the same fish.

Since it is such a pain to properly identify one's fish in the aquarium as being either P. altum or some other "fake" wannabe altum strain, just keep Pt. leopoldi. You get wild fish and you have no need to worry about whether they're the real deal or not.

In post no. 21 in this thread by Reebok4190, the first picture shows a fish with a blotch just behind the eye, which matches Khardina's drawing in the Nutrafin PDF. The gill cover's shape is not clearly seen though. So, is it really an altum, or a "scalare" like what Heiko says?

I read too with interest on Page 3 of the Nutrafin PDF, where Heiko states:

2. P. leopoldi (Gosse, 1963), King
Leopold III’s (of the Belgians) angelfish, is
the only one of the three species to have a
slightly to strongly down-turned snout, and
is found only in the central Amazon basin as
well as in the lower Rio Negro. It can also
be recognised by its striking large black
shoulder spot. The only one of the three
with such a marking. This species is, however,
rare in the trade, and as far as I know
has not been bred.

Yes, indeed P. leopoldi is uncommon in the trade, but it has been bred before. There is an article by Alec McFarlane which was published in TFH magazine in July 1990. The Nutrafin PDF was made in 2003 as dated on the document, yet a breeding account existed since 1990, which Heiko missed.

For those interested, I have made a scan of my copy of the breeding account for Pt. leopoldi. If any one here on AQ wants it, just PM me with your email. Or you can just read the account on Finarama.

[Heiko Bleher]

Hi,

yes I know, at the time I wrote the article for NA I did not have Alec's breeding article available, that is why I wrote "as far as I know", it had not been bred in othe rplaces, that I knew and Alec informed me afterwards, when it was printed already. Sorry, but impossible to know it all and every single breeder in the world...

Best regards

Heiko
www.aquapress-bleher.com

[stormhawk]

I understand Heiko. We are all still awaiting your exhaustive study on all the known Angelfish species. I just read an article on Finarama regarding the "Peruvian Altums", which mentions about a farm escape and thus their purportedly establishment in the Rio Nanay due to this event.