# Peruvian Angel Group



## deepRED (May 22, 2010)

Picked these up from the guys at Underwater Collection in the summer when they were just quarter sized. A few months later, tons of feeding and water changes and the biggest ones are now 5-6 inches tall. They still have some growing to do as they're still teenagers, but they're developing nicely, lots of blue flecks on them, and around 5 or 6 are actually red spotted.

There's 24 of them in my 300 gallon:



















Although I've kept and bred angels in the past, I don't consider myself a big angel guy. Don't know too much about strains/traits and what not. What do the experts here think?


----------



## Claudia (Apr 21, 2010)

They are beautiful!!


----------



## er201 (Apr 21, 2010)

Very nice, well done with raising them. Any breeding pairs soo far? 
There don't look like rio nanay variants, but they're peruvians for sure.


----------



## deepRED (May 22, 2010)

er201 said:


> Very nice, well done with raising them. Any breeding pairs soo far?
> There don't look like rio nanay variants, but they're peruvians for sure.


The reason why I ask is that I'm curious about the bloodline and where they are from. They were sold as wild caught "peruvian altums", which we know are not altums at all, but a scalare variant. With the amount of blue coming in on these it makes me wonder if they are some sort of cross.


----------



## sunshine_1965 (Aug 16, 2011)

They are definitely nice looking angels.


----------



## er201 (Apr 21, 2010)

deepRED said:


> The reason why I ask is that I'm curious about the bloodline and where they are from. They were sold as wild caught "peruvian altums", which we know are not altums at all, but a scalare variant. With the amount of blue coming in on these it makes me wonder if they are some sort of cross.


To be honest, I am more familiar with brazillian Scalare variants and their collection points. These are 100% Pterophyllum sp. peru, but finding the actual river or area is near impossible for peruvians.


----------



## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

er201 said:


> To be honest, I am more familiar with brazillian Scalare variants and their collection points. These are 100% Pterophyllum sp. peru, but finding the actual river or area is near impossible for peruvians.


I am just curious, how do you find your variant of your what-you-call your angel variant? How many groups of angel you actually have, or import? You are only base on what they look like or appear on what you believe they look like. You bought yours as leopoldi, which almost all are exported through Peru. As far as I know, there is no one collecting inexpensive angel fish from Brazil besides the red altum as they worths most money.

You can't base on appearance to name a fish; especially like angels. They can be tough to do. The fact that your group was bought as leopoldi and having 3 out of 7 possible leopoldi suggest strongly that your group is actually from Peru.

But then again, I could be wrong. From the start, I still believe your group of angel are from Peru and strongly believe that they are with the above reason.



er201 said:


> To be honest, I am more familiar with brazillian Scalare variants and their collection points. These are 100% Pterophyllum sp. peru, but finding the actual river or area is near impossible for peruvians.


jermey, chance is very low as Altum x Peruvians. As most Altums are found in Columbia, and the red altum are from Brazil. There are some variant of Peruvian angel as well. Some with spots, some with red, some with stronger pattern and line.


----------



## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

To further clarify, I dont want to make this sounds like a pissing contest. I don't really care what you want to call those angel as long as you own them. The problem here is, just like other cichlids or any fish that is hard to ID from orgins, when you sell them and label them as appearance, it will further corrupt the chain later on. Unless you have the exportation letter or invoice to prove that they are in fact collected from Xingu, you can't just send photos out or post photos on other forum trying to get a possible ID of the fish. It doesn't really work for scarlare. Most can only tell you that they might be possible of this or that; but never a 100% positive ID.

Think of this situation, someone bought yours to breed with his true xingu angel. Now what will happen if yours turn out not to be? The fry he/she sells will for sure label as Xingu angel as it is what you told them. Those fry will then sell off to other people and breed them and so on. A few generation down the road, you are going to have many people with many of the fry that supposingly from Xingu but perhaps they are not.

I have a passion for wild fish. Most of my customers also love wild fish knowing that they will not get mistaken fish or fish might carry other genes in them. I always show them the invoice where they came from if we have questionable fish. It will take the doubt away. Even the same type of fish can have some small appearance differences.


----------



## Lamplighter (Aug 3, 2012)

They are really nice looking fish. The fish have the classical altum snout. It's of course possible that they are a X.


----------



## er201 (Apr 21, 2010)

charles said:


> To further clarify, I dont want to make this sounds like a pissing contest. I don't really care what you want to call those angel as long as you own them. The problem here is, just like other cichlids or any fish that is hard to ID from orgins, when you sell them and label them as appearance, it will further corrupt the chain later on. Unless you have the exportation letter or invoice to prove that they are in fact collected from Xingu, you can't just send photos out or post photos on other forum trying to get a possible ID of the fish. It doesn't really work for scarlare. Most can only tell you that they might be possible of this or that; but never a 100% positive ID.
> 
> Think of this situation, someone bought yours to breed with his true xingu angel. Now what will happen if yours turn out not to be? The fry he/she sells will for sure label as Xingu angel as it is what you told them. Those fry will then sell off to other people and breed them and so on. A few generation down the road, you are going to have many people with many of the fry that supposingly from Xingu but perhaps they are not.
> 
> I have a passion for wild fish. Most of my customers also love wild fish knowing that they will not get mistaken fish or fish might carry other genes in them. I always show them the invoice where they came from if we have questionable fish. It will take the doubt away. Even the same type of fish can have some small appearance differences.


The problem here Charles is that I don't make up species names for them. All I'm trying to do is figure out which river they came from. I wouldn't wanna call a Brazillian scalare Peruvian either. My intentions are to identify the variations in different rivers. If you're happy with calling them by country's, so be it. And if pictures don't do it for you then fine. I mean I'm trying to work with the resources I have, which is the internet. I don't have the proper funding to go down to Brazil myself to study the fish in person. Also my findings aren't just backed up by my own, I have a specific forum where I get all of these ideas and suggestions. The Brazil and Peru scalare thing, I have 100% sure they're rio xingu, no doubt about it. A store in the UK got a shipment from Brazil contaminated with Leopoldis after ordering Scalares. Go on with what you would like to think, but personally. I would rather gather information from different people than just say they're not something just because I import fish. Oh and if you would like to disprove that they're not Brazillian scalares, please feel free to send me a private message with proof rather than just saying "from experience".


----------



## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

Anyone that can tell by just looking at photos and tell you 100% where the fish actually came from can't ID your fish properly. There is no way; even an experience angel or collector can tell you 100%. They can tell you most likely, but not 100%. 

I called yours a Peruvian as there were no Brazilian offers in any stock list that I know of. And believe me, I have a bunch. I don't just say they are not Brazilian as because of appearance; but from combining knownledge from different sources. I don't just look at photos either as some fish can look so much like the other but still from different countries.

You bought this from your supplier in Canada and I am pretty sure we share the same suppliers in Brazil. As far as I know, there were only once red altum was offered and the cost was much more than this batch of angels and I can date all the way back to late last year that where were no other angel fish was offered. At the end of the day, if I was wrong, I will gladly publicly say I am sorry to mistaken your fish. However, what I don't do is say I am 100% sure this type of fish is from this river just by judging from photos.


----------



## fishdragon (Nov 8, 2010)

What ever they are, they look beautiful!!!


----------



## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

Yes. They are beautiful.

Sorry to hijack your thread, jeremy. My bad.


----------

