Altum care

[manzpants92]

So I'm wondering if some of you that have cared for altum angels or know the care required could give me some information on them. I've seen things that say their care level is a little harder than regular angels, comparable to discus, and i also read an article the other day that said they were the hardest freshwater fish to keep. Just wondering what the TRUTH is on these fish and how hard they are to actually care for

[Ryan]

Travis,

I have moved your post to the non-discus section of our board. Hopefully some wild altum keepers will be along to answer your questions soon.

For what it's worth, they are certainly not the hardest freshwater fish to keep. Once they're acclimated they tend to be pretty hardy. The difficulty tends to be getting them acclimated in the first place. They are certainly more specialized than your typical tank-bred angels. You will have to be very mindful of their initial quarantine and their water quality.

[DerekFF]

They hard to breed not really keep from what ive read. Acclimation is key. After that theyre just like any ither fish

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

[manzpants92]

Travis,

I have moved your post to the non-discus section of our board. Hopefully some wild altum keepers will be along to answer your questions soon.

For what it's worth, they are certainly not the hardest freshwater fish to keep. Once they're acclimated they tend to be pretty hardy. The difficulty tends to be getting them acclimated in the first place. They are certainly more specialized than your typical tank-bred angels. You will have to be very mindful of their initial quarantine and their water quality.

Thanks Ryan...I must have looked over that section my apalogies

[Discus Origins]

Initial acclimation period after shipping is the most critical part. They require soft water and a good eye for any early onset of diseases as they have weak immune systems. Once they get acclimated they are hardier and not as sensitive.

[manzpants92]

Are the captive bred altums still just as difficult to acclimate?

[Ryan]

No. The ones I got from Kraig were very hardy. I didn't treat them any differently than my other tank-bred fish.

[manzpants92]

Awesome thanks for the help! more just curiosity for future reference

[JamesHe]

High quality tank-bred Altum would be more expensive.

There are some lines in Europe, but never seen in US market.

[Discus-n00b]

I'd say the ones brought into the US from Tony were pretty high quality....I wish someone would bring them in again, I missed the boat on that one.

[Ryan]

I'd say the ones brought into the US from Tony were pretty high quality....

Agreed. I keep reading all these negative things about those fish, how they're hybrids, etc. I can tell you from the group I received that they were like no scalare I have ever kept, and I could not find one aspect of them that hinted that they were hybrids. People speak of the incomplete/broken bars on some of them, but I have seen this myself in other F1 cichlids which I've personally bred and raised from wild parents. I do not feel this is a sole indication that the fish are impure or low quality. Until someone can show me concrete proof, I have no reason to believe they aren't true tank-bred altums.

[Discus-n00b]

I've got broken bars on some of my wild discus, I hate that nitpicky aspect of some arguments.

Any recent pictures of those Altums you got Ryan?

[manzpants92]

pictures would be great ryan :)

[Rick S]

Agreed. I keep reading all these negative things about those fish, how they're hybrids, etc. I can tell you from the group I received that they were like no scalare I have ever kept, and I could not find one aspect of them that hinted that they were hybrids. People speak of the incomplete/broken bars on some of them, but I have seen this myself in other F1 cichlids which I've personally bred and raised from wild parents. I do not feel this is a sole indication that the fish are impure or low quality. Until someone can show me concrete proof, I have no reason to believe they aren't true tank-bred altums.

You will never get concrete proof because it's not true. From what I have seen the people who make these insinuations are the ones who are selling wilds. As they say follow the money.

Rick

[Ryan]

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of them. I ended up giving all my angels and discus away a few months ago when I ran into some major water issues and started losing fish. The discus went to a friend in Georgia and the altums went to a local friend who's a cichlid nut. I just looked through my picture folders and couldn't even find pictures of them when I got them. :(

If you check out Kraig's sponsor section I know there are people who've posted pictures of their grow-outs from the same group. One member is even spawning his. They ended up being beautiful fish.

Check out these links:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?100452-altums-update

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?100034-F1-Altums-spawn

[Discus Origins]

You will never get concrete proof because it's not true. From what I have seen the people who make these insinuations are the ones who are selling wilds. As they say follow the money.

Rick

Should do your research before making a statement like this....most of the issues and remarks have been made by buyers of so called F1 Altums all over the world that noticed irregularities, not people selling wilds. It's funny people don't need concrete proof that they are buying the right fish but need proof that they aren't as advertised.

The history of European bred pure Altums are well documented. The history of pure Altums being bred Asia is sketchy. It's a well know fact that the Tans worked with a line of German bred Altums that were at least F1 or more. Breeding a F1 to an F1 doesn't make it an F1. Its more likely that whats being bred are F2/3s to each other. Unfortunately many Asian breeders call any tank raised fish F1, it's not as strict in meaning as it should be.

I would love to get my hands on and supply F1 Altums from Europe, but demand far outweighs supply.

This exact topic has been discussed before on this forum

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/archive/index.php/t-85176.html

[Ryan]

Should do your research before making a statement like this....most of the issues and remarks have been made by buyers of so called F1 Altums all over the world that noticed irregularities, not people selling wilds. It's funny people don't need concrete proof that they are buying the right fish but need proof that they aren't as advertised.

Yes, but getting back to my point, most of the people who pointed out irregular bars seem to imply that it's because the fish are hybrids. To my knowledge, no one has ever spawned P. scalare with P. altum, or P. scalare with P. leopoldi. Yes, some species within a genus interbreed (as we see in discus, certain severums, etc.) but then some do not (I've never heard of hybrid pikes or Geophagus, for instance).

My initial point was that these fish seem to be 100% altum and I will not believe otherwise until someone shows me proof. It's not a huge deal to me what generation they are. I thought I'd read somewhere that the tank-raised altums were actually F4 fish (I forget what site I saw this on), which would line up with what you're saying. That's still relatively close to wilds or F1s, considering most domestic angels and discus in the hobby can't even be traced back at this point.

For the record, most fish that come out of Asia are sketchy. There are very few details about how they spawned any of the domestic discus color types, the super red severums, how they made jellybean parrots, etc. etc. When they first made electric blue rams available, they only released males for sale to keep people from spawning the fish themselves. I'm sure it was to protect their investment. Anyone who's been in the hobby long enough should know that their documentation isn't as meticulous as some of the European breeders. I still bought a group of the fish anyway because I wanted to try them for myself. I can tell you after breeding P. scalare for 15+ years that they were nothing like scalare.

Also, my point still stands about the broken/incomplete bars (which none of my altums had). I have bred four species of wild severum (H. sp. rotkiel, H. sp. Atabapo, H. severus, and H. notatus) and every group of F1 fish had fry with broken or fused bars, though the parents did not exhibit this trait. I wasn't suggesting that this was proof of the altums being F1, just that it's entirely plausible for F1 fish to show these irregularities even when their parents look 'normal'. I was also bringing this up because some people assumed the misbarring was due to them being hybrids, but it's perfectly normal for misbarring to occur in pure-bred fish.

[Discus Origins]

I agree with you on many points Ryan. My point is that the fish we are talking about were sold as F1s, and the probability of that is very low. It has nothing to do with suppliers who bought from the source because all we can do is trust that our sources would be accurate. But most serious breeders normally would only want to work with wilds or F1s because the genetic pool is still very intact. I was big into tanganyikans years ago and wouldn't have purchased any fish beyond F1. I think that's where most of the comments came from because there are certain characteristics pointing to definite multi-generational inbreeding with some of these fish.

I don't think anyone was claiming they were not healthy or beautiful fish. My observations are there is also mis-barred fish in wild Altums also.

[Rick S]

Should do your research before making a statement like this....most of the issues and remarks have been made by buyers of so called F1 Altums all over the world that noticed irregularities, not people selling wilds. It's funny people don't need concrete proof that they are buying the right fish but need proof that they aren't as advertised.

The history of European bred pure Altums are well documented. The history of pure Altums being bred Asia is sketchy. It's a well know fact that the Tans worked with a line of German bred Altums that were at least F1 or more. Breeding a F1 to an F1 doesn't make it an F1. Its more likely that whats being bred are F2/3s to each other. Unfortunately many Asian breeders call any tank raised fish F1, it's not as strict in meaning as it should be.

I would love to get my hands on and supply F1 Altums from Europe, but demand far outweighs supply.

This exact topic has been discussed before on this forum

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/archive/index.php/t-85176.html


I have done my research and stand by my statement.

Rick