Wild vs Caught - mainly about altums and angels

Hi Ghosts,

What do you mean the mortality rate is so high? The mortality rate for wild caught fishes is actually very very low. Have a look at the Hustinx site, they show newly imported wildcaughts (imported into Belgium) and they have negligible losses because they look after the fishes properly prior to shipping. This part of the business has been improved to a huge extent compared to the past because the transport of these fishes is just far to expensive to accommodate losses.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Re: Some of my wilds

With regards to Altum's, not sure about Discus, the mortality rate is very high, into the 70% of fish. That alone in transit.

A fish that is so sensitive to changes will not travel well. Most of them will not even feed when on the tank.

Had they been easy to transport they would be more common on our shops.

On the other hand, if not for dedicated breeders and keepers, most of the fish would become extinct, the Altum and Discus no exception.

I believe that the wildcaught fish should be kept only at aquariums, universities and with individuals that have a license for it.

Same as with plants.. There are plants that cannot enter South Africa, for example, but I am sure that with the right license you can obtain them, even if just for study.

 

Re: Some of my wilds

Hi R C and Luis,

The reason why you are not seeing altums being offered is because of political problems in Venezuela and not because of the mortalities during transport. At the moment, exporters are just simply not able to obtain fishes because in the areas where they occur there are bandits which control these areas. As a result only a trickle of fishes gets out, some of them via Columbia and then occasional batches via Venezuela. What happens is that after transport there are losses because persons (including the importers) do not keep the altums in water which is soft enough and under the right conditions, that I will agree with. However, altums are now being bred in captivity. Slowly but surely there are breeders that are able to breed them and this should lead to them being more available without it having an impact on the stocks in nature.

I will agree that the export of wild-caught fishes in the long run is unsustainable, there has to be better control. However, this control is improving and for example, Hypancistrus zebra, L46, catfish export was banned by the Brazilian authorities because of over exploitation. As a result their prices have rocketed, but they are being bred in captivity.

Perhaps what this means that unless you are really someone that is experienced, you will not be allowed to keep certain fishes that come from the wild. In principle I agree with this. I do however, do my best to breed these beauties and I have been successful in breeding many discus, but the altums still elude me.

Yes, I suppose this is a black box and it would be nice if we knew things were done correctly and with a minimum of losses of wildcaughts, but I guess this is often an illusion.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Re: Some of my wilds

Thanks Dirk, that makes sense, after all the government needs to authorise the exports.

Either way, your fish are really good looking, and it would make sense to buy your fish and support the local breeding of wild types.

Anyone in SA breeding Altums?

 

Re: angels

Those altums are stunning angels! They almost look like the marine angels.

 

Re: Some of my wilds

I also tough that I didn't know how to see the difference.. You will know as soon as you see them, they look so much diferent, the fins are much longer, but not frilly, and they move so much differently. As they are as hard to keep as Discus, I think that I would rather keep Discus, they look much more colourful.

See my flickr page for Altum pics, a shop in the UK had a shoal on a display tank.

 

Re: Some of my wilds

Hi Guys,

You need to be very careful about cursing people about what are altums and what are not if you are not properly informed.

The German gentleman in question here is a good friend of mine, but I will not give his name for privacy reasons. Let me explain what the fishes are that he is selling and for this I need to backtrack a little.

Altums come from the Orinoco River, a river that drains to the north of South America and lies north of the Amazon River. The P scalare come from the Amazon River. A tributary of the Amazon which runs from the north into the Amazon is called the Rio Negro. Peculiarly this river has a broad river that links this river with the Orinoco called the Casiquaire canal. Because of this link in these rivers altums and scalare angels can actually come into contact with each other in nature, which they have many years ago and they have hybridized in these areas. These hybrids have been debated extensively on the international angelfish forum and they refer to them as "Paradox fishes" or "Paradox angels", sometimes they are actually sold as Rio Negro angels, Andre on this forum has some of these. I have specifically posted pictures of the fishes that this German gentleman has bred on the angelfish forum and the consensus of opinion was that these fishes are not true altums but paradox fishes. So the question is what do you call them, altums or not altums? What I can tell you is that they are far larger than normal scalare angels and that they are very similar to altums, but with subtle differences that only the specialist will be able to see. So the bottom line is that the German gentleman is not breeding true altums it appears, but fishes that are very close to altums. His original fish were imported from Germany, just for the record.

Re your comment, Ghostword, about how difficult altums are to keep, I can say to you categorically from experience that they are more difficult to keep than discus, they demand much better water conditions even than discus or else you will loose them. About your comment that discus are more colourful than altums there is no doubt, but the movement of altums relative to discus or relative to normal scalare type angels is really impressive and I find them equally attractive to discus if not more so.

I can advise you to visit a German website of a gentleman, called Simon Forkel, who is now breeding them in Germany www.skalarezucht.de . This website has the most amazing pictures and videos of altums and it is well worth looking at the videos to see the difference in the movement of the altums relative to the scalare. Previously there was only one German who bred them, Horst Linke, but now this gentleman is also breeding them, these are often referred to as Linke Altums. In the Czech Republic there are also breeders of altums and they are now breeding 3 rd generation fishes already from the original fishes bred by Linke.

Altums are stunning fishes but these fishes are only for the REALLY experienced aquarist.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Re: Some of my wilds

I do not dispute this, in any way shape or form.

I had a 4 hour trip to TGM in the UK, where they have a shoal of Altum's, and during the trip we were discusing why would people keep Altum's at all, on the 15 of us we could not agree on why would they be so sought after. Obviously I had not seen one before, I thought that they were just another version of Angel fish, like you have the veils, black, etc.

Of course I was wrong, as soon as I saw them I was mesmerized. Their movement is so "weird", so slow and composed, and they are quite large. I will visit and see them again, although I would not attempt to keep them.

In the UK I usually see Discus on the shops, and they have mutted colors, probably due to stress, and have some Discus at friends homes, but I have not seen them with such nice colours as yours.

Does your German friend sell the Angel Paradox in south africa? That would be a good buy, a halfway between the two.

Thanks for the insight.

 

Re: Some of my wilds

Hi Shihr,

I will be the first to agree with you about uninformed shop attendants, they love spreading rumors about things that they know very little about.

In this case the story actually is quite complicated as you can see and that is why I wanted to get the records straight. These fishes are definitely easier to keep than normal altums, but they do not breed as easily as P scalare and my friend has actually only been able to breed them on three occasions, that is when I last spoke to him a few months ago.

No problem that this is slightly off topic, I think the issue about wild caught fishes is very well illustrated by using altums as an example.

I hope you have gone to see the website though, true altums are really exquisite. The paradox fishes are not quite as regal, but they are certainly something special. A pic of these specific fishes follows below.

Kind regards,

Dirk



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Re: Some of my wilds

Would also very much like to know

Regards
Peter