My Wild Orinoco Altum Angel

[ivo]

I always want to keep some wild altum angel but always worry about the fact that they are hard to keep and very sensitive to poor quality of water. Anyway, i took a punt and bought two of these beauties four weeks ago. They were absolutely tiny but have grown decent size since then, and surprisingly they don't seem to be too high maintenance and super healthy. Hope you like them.

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18617.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18593.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18575.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18591.jpghttp://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18571.jpg

[giorid]

FANTASTIC.

[giorid]

Hi ivo,
wow, they look great, if you don't mind me asking, who did you buy them from, hope you get to breed them.

[bytan83]

Hi ivo,

What parameters have you got them in ? Are they as hard to keep as people say ?

[ALTUMA]

Hi IVO

How confident are you that you have been sold the wild caught Altums,
First glance and the pics you have tell me that you got F1 tank bread.
You may want to know how anyone can tell the diffidence,
How i tell the diffidence is from the middle bar, it has to connect to the bottom of the body and turn towards the rear lower fin.
As you can see clearly in your pics yours are just shy of reaching the bottom of the body.
Non the less they are grate looking fish, and been told they are easier to keep than the wild caught.

I have been keeping wild ones for 5 years now and i started with 12 and have just one still alive, he is about 25 cm top fin to bottom fin.

[ivo]

Hi IVO

How confident are you that you have been sold the wild caught Altums,
First glance and the pics you have tell me that you got F1 tank bread.
You may want to know how anyone can tell the diffidence,
How i tell the diffidence is from the middle bar, it has to connect to the bottom of the body and turn towards the rear lower fin.
As you can see clearly in your pics yours are just shy of reaching the bottom of the body.
Non the less they are grate looking fish, and been told they are easier to keep than the wild caught.

I have been keeping wild ones for 5 years now and i started with 12 and have just one still alive, he is about 25 cm top fin to bottom fin.

Why don't you do more research first?

[m.ingram]

Beautiful little ones u must be really happy to have them .

[FinVision P/L]

Hi IVO

How confident are you that you have been sold the wild caught Altums,
First glance and the pics you have tell me that you got F1 tank bread.
You may want to know how anyone can tell the diffidence,
How i tell the diffidence is from the middle bar, it has to connect to the bottom of the body and turn towards the rear lower fin.
As you can see clearly in your pics yours are just shy of reaching the bottom of the body.
Non the less they are grate looking fish, and been told they are easier to keep than the wild caught.

I have been keeping wild ones for 5 years now and i started with 12 and have just one still alive, he is about 25 cm top fin to bottom fin.

I am positive these are wilds, we have imported many F1 altums and some do show incomplete bar, but I have also seen many wild caught altums with incomplete bar, which means the centre bar doesn’t always reach the very bottom. We have visited the Taiwan Altum breeder whom had, through out his whole stock very bad broken bar traits, (bars with gapes in-between).
I have also visited the Malaysian Breeder whom breeds the F1s and he had all his fish without broken bar, but admittedly a few with incomplete bar traits. I have seen many juvi wilds with incomplete bar and many with complete bar. But as they mature the bar becomes complete, I think this is a species distribution issue and nothing more, with the wilds.
Their are different variants as you are most likely to be aware of with the P Altum , just to name a few, they include the Rio Ventuari , Rio Inirida, Rio Orinoco and the Rio Atabapo, they all have different appearances. Some have extraordinarily Tall dorsal, some have red spotts some have a lot of red in the dorsal some have a lot of blue sheen some have thicker bars and some have longer ventral fins, So in conclusion in my opinion these fish in question are undoubtedly Wild P Altum, I will say though, that the Incomplete bar on the F1s are a little bit bigger than the incomplete bar gap from the bottom of the Wild fish which has a smaller gap. I will say that from which river system the fish in question comes from I hasten to guess, most likely Rio Inirida, as this is where most of the wilds where caught and exported from in the last season, which was around June to August noted by my direct South American source

[ivo]

Hi IVO

How confident are you that you have been sold the wild caught Altums,
First glance and the pics you have tell me that you got F1 tank bread.
You may want to know how anyone can tell the diffidence,
How i tell the diffidence is from the middle bar, it has to connect to the bottom of the body and turn towards the rear lower fin.
As you can see clearly in your pics yours are just shy of reaching the bottom of the body.
Non the less they are grate looking fish, and been told they are easier to keep than the wild caught.

I have been keeping wild ones for 5 years now and i started with 12 and have just one still alive, he is about 25 cm top fin to bottom fin.

I am positive these are wilds, we have imported many F1 altums and some do show

Thank you for your clarification. Have you got any special angels for sale at the moment?

incomplete bar, but I have also seen many wild caught altums with incomplete bar, which means the centre bar doesn’t always reach the very bottom. We have visited the Taiwan Altum breeder whom had, through out his whole stock very bad broken bar traits, (bars with gapes in-between).
I have also visited the Malaysian Breeder whom breeds the F1s and he had all his fish without broken bar, but admittedly a few with incomplete bar traits. I have seen many juvi wilds with incomplete bar and many with complete bar. But as they mature the bar becomes complete, I think this is a species distribution issue and nothing more, with the wilds.
Their are different variants as you are most likely to be aware of with the P Altum , just to name a few, they include the Rio Ventuari , Rio Inirida, Rio Orinoco and the Rio Atabapo, they all have different appearances. Some have extraordinarily Tall dorsal, some have red spotts some have a lot of red in the dorsal some have a lot of blue sheen some have thicker bars and some have longer ventral fins, So in conclusion in my opinion these fish in question are undoubtedly Wild P Altum, I will say though, that the Incomplete bar on the F1s are a little bit bigger than the incomplete bar gap from the bottom of the Wild fish which has a smaller gap. I will say that from which river system the fish in question comes from I hasten to guess, most likely Rio Inirida, as this is where most of the wilds where caught and exported from in the last season, which was around June to August noted by my direct South American source

[ivo]

Stuff up lasr post. Hi Finvision, thank you for your clarification. Have you got any special angels for sale at the monent?

[ivo]

Some update photos of my wild caught Altums. To my surprise they are not hard to keep at all, no special treatment just like other angels.
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/20130804_013224.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/20130802_105145.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/20130802_012902.jpg

[Merrilyn]

Looking good ivo. I wouldn't exactly say they're as hardy as domestic angels. They need higher temps and more acid water than your normal domestic, but that said, yours are looking good and healthy.

I found mine would thrive once they got over the shock of importing and quarantine. They've got to be tough little fish to survive that, an the smaller they are, the better they seem to adapt.

[ivo]

Looking good ivo. I wouldn't exactly say they're as hardy as domestic angels. They need higher temps and more acid water than your normal domestic, but that said, yours are looking good and healthy.

I found mine would thrive once they got over the shock of importing and quarantine. They've got to be tough little fish to survive that, an the smaller they are, the better they seem to adapt.

Hi Merrilyn, I just keep them around 27 degrees cos I have 12 redline torpedo barbs in the tank so I dont want too high temperature for them cos they are my favorite fish. Just normal tap water PH I dont do any adjustment. Have these Altums for around 8 months now and they seem happy with these parameters. I do keep the water very clean and have an eheim 2080, 2 eheim 2217 for filtration.

[FinVision P/L]

Looking good ivo. I wouldn't exactly say they're as hardy as domestic angels. They need higher temps and more acid water than your normal domestic, but that said, yours are looking good and healthy.

I found mine would thrive once they got over the shock of importing and quarantine. They've got to be tough little fish to survive that, an the smaller they are, the better they seem to adapt.

Hi Merrilyn, I just keep them around 27 degrees cos I have 12 redline torpedo barbs in the tank so I dont want too high temperature for them cos they are my favorite fish. Just normal tap water PH I dont do any adjustment. Have these Altums for around 8 months now and they seem happy with these parameters. I do keep the water very clean and have an eheim 2080, 2 eheim 2217 for filtration.

They look good mate, i also note that their bars are looking more complete in comparison to you last pics, as I suspected they would. 'TAP WATER? WOW' without adjustments? Can i say that you are running the gauntlet? Tap water is inconstant. The water is obviously OK for now but when the water board does some maintenance, things could become a little risky. I have suspected for years now in my humble opinion, the older Altums are the more demanding they become with their water chemistry. I wish you the best of luck and I hope I am wrong and these Altums are proven to be resilient

[ILLUSN]

Looking good Ivo
well done

[ivo]

Hi Finvision, funny you said about the bar have reached lower body. I only just noticed it when you mentioned. I guess they take time to develop they also started to develop some blue colur in the first half of body. I do believe you about tap water can be inconsistent. I generally do age my water for a few days to settle ph fluctuation and I do frequent small water change rather large water change. I used to monitor and maintain acidic water for my discus but now just keeping a constant parameters instead.