# New Pterophyllum Leopoldis and Pterophyllum cf. Scalare



## er201

Thanks to harold! can't thank him enough, these Angels are already adult size I'll be posting update pictures tomorrow and the upcoming days Ill have with them.










































Full tank shot before the angels came along


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## bunnyrabbit

Nice meeting you Errol. The angels really look nice. Sometimes I wish I had a better camera.


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## er201

bunnyrabbit said:


> Nice meeting you Errol. The angels really look nice. Sometimes I wish I had a better camera.


Like wise Peter, thanks again for holding them for me. And yes they do, they started to color back up as soon as the tank light went up. Hoping they'll look nicer than they already are tomorrow. And yes a better camera is always a good thing to have on hand.


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## charles

They are not leopoldi. True leopoldi has a classic turn down snout. Many Peruivan angels are exported as leopoldi. I had imported them twice. Both times turn out to be just a type of common Peruivan angels.


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## er201

charles said:


> They are not leopoldi. True leopoldi has a classic turn down snout. Many Peruivan angels are exported as leopoldi. I had imported them twice. Both times turn out to be just a type of common Peruivan angels.


3 of them are actually leopoldis, they have the black blotch at the dorsal insertion on the 4th vertical bar and no pre-dorsal notch, they also came from brazil not peru.
I'll do an id on the other 4 tomorrow. The pre-dorsal notch also look like they've been sunk in. I'm not sure if that normal but Ill see tomorrow.


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## charles

Take a look at some ang3l fish forum discussion. It is the classic turn down snout that is a trait of leopoldi. But call it what you like. I am just sharing my opinion.


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## er201

charles said:


> Take a look at some ang3l fish forum discussion. It is the classic turn down snout that is a trait of leopoldi. But call it what you like. I am just sharing my opinion.


Oh I know I actually looked into how to id and pretty much went through most of what is posted on the internet about them even though they're usually copy paste from each other.

This is one of the said 3 positive leopoldi id










And the other 4 Ill id tomorrow when they get more comfy.


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## er201

Just an update today, 3 of them are infact leopoldis and the other 4 I have an unsure feeling about the id so I've sent a request to heiko bleher.


























Here is a picture from Finarama.com of a Leopoldi

http://www.finarama.com/tba/al12.htm

A link to more angel pictures for purpose of Identifying and comparison.
Species Identification

And a random picture I found of a juvenile Leopoldi from practical fishkeeping discussion over at the uk forums









Source:http://forum.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/showpost.php?p=273898&postcount=12


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## macframalama

put the unknown one in a clock , 

awfully large tank for those guys I half way expected them to be in a 10 gallon
fyi i was joking around, the bases of my post was on a difference of opinion on a betta in a clock 

this is a very beautiful set up for these angels , they look great and the tank looks awesome


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## er201

After many hours of reading, I've come to the conclusion that the other 4 are pterophyllum scalare sp. Rio ***** with a chance of being "Pterophyllum aff.altum" or red altums.


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## charles

The new photos you put up, they do look like leopoldi, let them grow a bit, see if you can see some spotting also.

The rest of those, they are pretty much scalare. They don't have the pattern, color, or body shape like the red altum from Brazil.


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## er201

charles said:


> The new photos you put up, they do look like leopoldi, let them grow a bit, see if you can see some spotting also.
> 
> The rest of those, they are pretty much scalare. They don't have the pattern, color, or body shape like the red altum from Brazil.


They're at 2.5" for smallest one 3" for second one, and the biggest one is at 4" no spotting at all they colored up and settled in already. The scalare are probably rio ***** angelfish with the high body look, still waiting for them to get settled in.


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## er201

Well a week later and the other 4 are 100% rio ***** scalares, But I came by an interesting post saying that someone had bred "altumxscalare" and they look EXACTLY like my rio ******, is it possible that these are natural form of an altumxscalare?


















This guy is probably the best adjusted out of the 4


























Probable pair









Can you spot them at the back?


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## er201

Oh and heres a picture from the post on angelfish fish study group at finarama.









Source:The Angelfish Study Group :: Log in


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## gsneufeld

Those are lovely... where do I go to get them???


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## er201

gsneufeld said:


> Those are lovely... where do I go to get them???


The altumxscalare? or rio ****** which I have?
Rio ****** I have, so does harold from fairdeals. 
Altumxscalare I'm not sure but they're supposively an offspring from male Altum and a female scalare, and bred by " Eric Hustinx"


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## Lamplighter

Their snouts resemble Altums but they are not 100% Altums so most likely a X.


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## er201

Lamplighter said:


> Their snouts resemble Altums but they are not 100% Altums so most likely a X.


Oh I know that. It's a scalare from Rio ***** which prompted "Dr. Herbert Axelrod" to look into a possible link between scalare and altum, but later came to a conclusion that they weren't hybrids. My question was that since "Eric Hustinx" allegedly cross bred an altum with the scalare with an outcome similar to wild Rio ***** scalares, that is it possible that rio ****** might actually be a link between altum and scalare.

Some people where I do my readings suggest that theres a lack of necessary hormones for the altums to breed which leaves males to be willing to hybridize.
"Eric Hustinx said that the Altum / scalare crossbreds were the result of an amourous Altum male and a Scalare female"
"a suggestion that the reason / reasons for difficulties with persuading Altum to spawn was effectively, low levels of the required hormones in female Altum."
"Yes, there is main problem I see. No problems by males - I think, that they could be spawning in more times, but problem is in thronging with eggs by females."


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## Lamplighter

DNA analysis would solve the question but it would be costly.


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## charles

Chance is your fish not a hybird.

True Altum is from Columbia. Your fish, most likely from Peru does not produce any Altum. I know you will say your fish is from Brazil. Both Peru and Brazil produces Leopoldi. With a mixture of fish you get there, I would assume your fish most likely come from Peru. Not many exporter in Brazil will waste gas/man-power etc to collect common angels. They can allocate their money toward something else that will give them better payoff.


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## er201

charles said:


> Chance is your fish not a hybird.
> 
> True Altum is from Columbia. Your fish, most likely from Peru does not produce any Altum. I know you will say your fish is from Brazil. Both Peru and Brazil produces Leopoldi. With a mixture of fish you get there, I would assume your fish most likely come from Peru. Not many exporter in Brazil will waste gas/man-power etc to collect common angels. They can allocate their money toward something else that will give them better payoff.


That's right Charles, but if you do the reading like I have. Peruvians aren't the only scalare with pre-dorsal notches. I also spent hours digging through countless post to identify my angels and not just shrug them off as peruvians. If you don't believe me, look at these angels from peter at "villasofangels" who specialize in Angels.

Here is his post on another forum with pictures.
Wild Caught Rio ***** Angelfish - The Angelfish Forum II - Focused on Freshwater Angelfish.
There's more. If you read this The Rio ***** Angelfishes by Warren Burgess you would understand that these scalares do in fact occur in the rio *****.
Plus if you look at the identification page, none of my angels look like peruvians.Species Identification

A quick glance at these links will also help prove this.
An insight on the Rio ***** Scalare - Biol. E.W. Cabezas - The Angelfish Forum II - Focused on Freshwater Angelfish.
I have more pages if you still think they're peruvians. I do agree they're probably not hybrids, but it was a question of "is it possible" after seeing a picture of an alleged "altumxscalare".


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## charles

I am from a point of view of an importer/exporter + money factor. Very rarely do collector spent money and time to collect something that is not going to sell. 

A good example is Burandi frontosa. Although many people claims that have wild one, the true is very rare do those wild one actually come in as the money is just not there. They can spend the same amount of time and money and collect and sell something 3-10x more than that. Apply the same to the angel fish.


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## er201

Oh I know, But the background to these angels are that, they were supposed to be "special amapas" but the exporters changed them to normal scalares last second. They are from brazil. But later inspections they were ID'd as leopoldis by Harolds friend, and after I got them, only 3 ended up being leopoldis with the other 4 ID'd as Rio ******.


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## er201

Well its been almost a week, so I guess its time for an update.


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## macframalama

looking good buddy


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## bunnyrabbit

Wow Errol. That looks great. You should get some Altums, though the leopoldis and other angels there look very comfortable and healthy.


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## er201

macframalama said:


> looking good buddy


Thanks mac



bunnyrabbit said:


> Wow Errol. That looks great. You should get some Altums, though the leopoldis and other angels there look very comfortable and healthy.


Thanks Peter, I'm actually planning on getting a group of altums when Harold gets them in.


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## er201

Heres a little sneak peak update.


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## er201

well thursdays here


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## er201

And without black water you can see they've developed some sort of golden/bronze shin on their crown, its more prominent on the bigger ones but the smaller ones are developing some too.










two of the biggest, who always seem to be fighting without causing each other harm.


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## bunnyrabbit

That's what I wanted to see. Super nice. The dumerli look great. And rare too.


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## er201

update on the tank


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## er201

Added more plants and a little rescape


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## charles

And that is a beautiful setup.


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## er201

Some more recent pictures taken today










These were everywhere today, seems like my natural moonlight got all the fish to breed the day after I set it up.



















Natural moonlight


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## er201

Would anyone be interested in buying this set up if I set it up for sale? Might look for around 400$ for the whole thing.


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