altum angels and Brewmaster

[mirador]

HI

I was grumbling dispiritedly about the state of my great altum angel winter project to a friend of mine with whom I did bring in altums in the past. The project has has gone so poorly that my wife did mention that,using her calculations regarding the amount I spent on fish and ancillary equipment I don't ordinarily need, that those remaining fishies, got to have cost $500.00 a pop.

IN any case I lamented "where was that guy we got the altums from before ". We got them a few years ago,stuck them in a good tank and all was fine and all 24 grew up. My friend said "What do you mean, where is that guy? It was Brewmaster we got them from." So, there you go.

Suffice to say,If Brewmaster has any pearls of wisdom on aclimating these things, I am accepting all of the pearls I can get. I am fairly knowledgeable particularly now, about the required conditions. However, those critical tank conditions break down either due to plain bilological activities of the fish or tail fin rot meds. ..and I get slight but still slowly deadly ammonia spikes

Any help appreciated

i

[Inland Empire Discus]

From what I am told buy some importers of altum and Andrew Soh, if you give altums a good treatment of Fucin when they arrive they generally have a 100% survival rate and end up doing well. I am not an altum person just relaying what I have been told.

[star rider]

there are a few different thoughts when bringing in Altum.
there are some Domestic Altum now..they have been successfully bred in captivity. if you can find these they are generally acclimated to more standard pH.
Early, young Altum seem to do better as well as which region they arrive from.

Atabapo,Inirida and Ventuari all P. Scalare but may show different traits(color, shape etc) most problems I have seen are difficult to pin point as to why they happen.
we are at the mercy (if getting wilds) of the capture and shipping pitfalls that may occur as well as housing the fish from the distributor, any of these can drastically affect the altum and Sx may not show for several days/weeks after they arrive to your tanks. that said even the best have suffered heavy losses.
bacterial issues seem to be the leading problem for the Altum..remember they come from pristine acidic water where bacteria are at low levels.

Mine are Inirida strain. When they arrived I placed them in straight RO water filtered thru Peat.. I also added catappa leaves to help lower pH. the Altum arrive from a very low pH below 6 and usually in the 5.X range.
luckily for me my pH is slightly acidic at 6.8 with low kh 3-4 and gh 7-8
the source had them in tanks for a fairly short time with pH 6.4..
lowering pH basically turns NH3 into NH4 there by lowering damage from ammonia it also works to keep bacteria populations to a minimum.. you can the slowly raise pH over time.
I did have to treat with furan 2 as columnaris began showing Sx.
I also trreated with anti parasite meds after furan treatment was successful. (metro/prazi ) I used api general cure. all but 1 fish survived.. and are still doing very well..(purchased wild P Altum Aug 2011)

I'm not sure my skill had much to do with it but I am sure luck did play a large part in my success