# Altum Angel



## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

What's the going price for quarter size tank bred Altum Angels? Anywhere in GTA I can find these? 

And anyone knows any good reference in how to tell a real ones from the fake ones? And pros and cons of wild caught vs tank bred ones.


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## GAT (Oct 8, 2011)

I saw some at Dragon aquarium in Mississauga. I didn't see the price but they had them there.


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## mistersprinkles (Nov 4, 2013)

You'd be much better off, and have a much easier time, with false altums than true altums. Rio ***** and peruvian altums are, IMO, more attractive than true altums and 100 times more forgiving.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

GAT said:


> I saw some at Dragon aquarium in Mississauga. I didn't see the price but they had them there.


Thanks for the info.



mistersprinkles said:


> You'd be much better off, and have a much easier time, with false altums than true altums. Rio ***** and peruvian altums are, IMO, more attractive than true altums and 100 times more forgiving.


Is it easy to tell the three apart? What about tank raised vs wild caught?


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## mistersprinkles (Nov 4, 2013)

randy said:


> Thanks for the info.
> 
> Is it easy to tell the three apart? What about tank raised vs wild caught?












True altums look like this









Peruvian looks sort of like this









I believe Rio ***** is similar with less body spotting and more red on the head.


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## Bwhiskered (Oct 2, 2008)

GAT said:


> I saw some at Dragon aquarium in Mississauga. I didn't see the price but they had them there.


The ones at the Dragon Aquarium are Peruvian Altums.


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## mistersprinkles (Nov 4, 2013)

Bwhiskered said:


> The ones at the Dragon Aquarium are Peruvian Altums.


Perfect. OP, buy some. You won't be sorry.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

Thanks a lot for all the information and for educating me on this topic. 

I'm all for challenges, so would like to know more about tank bred true altum vs wild caught ones. Are tank bred ones easier to raise? are they less pretty?

We have a few tanks of a variety of angels already, and some pretty nice koi angels. And I bred discus 20+ years ago semi-commercially in college, so not a total novice.


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## TorontoPlantMan (Aug 16, 2013)

randy said:


> Thanks a lot for all the information and for educating me on this topic.
> 
> I'm all for challenges, so would like to know more about tank bred true altum vs wild caught ones. Are tank bred ones easier to raise? are they less pretty?
> 
> We have a few tanks of a variety of angels already, and some pretty nice koi angels. And I bred discus 20+ years ago semi-commercially in college, so not a total novice.


True Altums are very rare and especially hard to breed in tanks, as the others have mentioned you'd be better off going for the Peruvian Altums. There is a member on here who has bread TRUE Altum's in his tank and is probably your best bet at contacting if you're going to want to find REAL true altum angels or more information, If you Google Jim Robinson he is the breeder and a very nice guy, I had the opportunity to get some rare plants off him.

Goodluck


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## GAT (Oct 8, 2011)

Bwhiskered said:


> The ones at the Dragon Aquarium are Peruvian Altums.


It's what the guy said but in his defense, he said they are rare altums but never said the specific type.

I was there looking for something like this









anyone know where i can find one of these


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## loonie (Mar 29, 2008)

GAT...the one you are looking for are call golden angels. You will find them in stores including BA, off and on.

The true altums are hard to find and not easy to accustom to our water condition, some LFS did bring them in but it did not live long.


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## mistersprinkles (Nov 4, 2013)

I saw some like that at Finatics.
The picture you posted is typical of 'morph' angels, though. Silvers (commons) tend to have the least deformities, and morphs (gold, koi, black, etc) have the most. The angel you linked has a deformed body, deformed dorsal fin, and ventral fins. I would urge you to get a w/c or F1/F2 silver angel. Much higher quality fish.

When looking at Angelfish, you want a fish shaped like this:









-Round body, not longer than it is tall.
-No kinks or bends in any fins
-when fully extended, holds it's fins at almost 180 degrees
-No obvious curve to the dorsal fin
-No lumpy/bumpy forehead









This is a crappy angel. Bent dorsal fin. The body is longer than it is tall and has lumpyness on the forehead. Some prominence to the forehead is normal on all male angels but it shouldn't be lumpy like this. His gill cover doesn't even cover his whole gill.


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