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First, the Angelfish Name Game!

Most aquarists on this Board are familiar with the freshwater Angelfish, or, more correctly, one particular species of freshwater Angelfish that has been a staple of the hobby for over 100 years. Yes, that's right - the Angelfish that we see in dealers was first domesticated way back in1900! However, the Genus Pterophyllum contains a few taxonomic pitfalls for the unwary!

I have in my possession a book from my teenage years, dated around 1974, which contains the following paragraph, whose contents will no doubt raise a few laughs among younger aquarists familiar with the modern taxonomic situation (!) :

Four species of freshwater Angelfish are known to the tropical aquarist. They are described in the more comprehensive aquarium books under the technical names of Pterophyllum dumerilii, P. altum, P. eimekei and P. scalare. The last three look much alike. For all that, only P. scalare and its several aquarium-bred varieties, or varieties derived from mixed P. altum (or P. eimekei) and P. scalare parentage, are commonly available in dealers' shops. It is even arguable whether the fishes known as P. eimekei and P. altum are true species at all. More likely - if we are to believe some of the experts- they are sub-species of P. scalare.

At the time that Jack Hems wrote this paragraph, the information was, believe it or not, state of the art. Now, of course, taxonomy has moved on, and out of a total of six species described in the Genus Petrophyllum, only three are now considered valid. These are Pterophyllum scalare, P. altum and an obscure third species, only very rarely imported, called P. leopoldi. Some German aquarists have encountered this latter species, but even they regard it as a rarity.

As for Pterophyllum altum, well, be prepared for some headaches. The genuine P. altum, or Altum Angelfish, is imported, but the majority of fishes imported under that name are NOT the genuine article! The genuine P. altum is a stunningly impressive fish, reaching 12 inches in height, and differs from the much-loved P. scalare in several other important respects. First, it is ONLY found in the upper Orinoco river, and the water chemistry of its habitat is very specialised indeed - this is a blackwater habitat (rich in dissolved humic acids), with extremely low mineral content (hardness probably struggles to reach 0.5 dH!) and a pH which can descend to as low as 4.0. Consequently, the true P. altum has resisted all attempts by aquarists to persuade it to breed in captivity for something like 80 years. Some of the world's best known and most illustrious names have tried and given up, so anyone on this Board looking for a challenge, this is a BIG one! While the true Altum Angelfish will live in the aquarium, captive breeding is a kind of 'Holy Grail' for Angelfish enthusiasts, and cracking the secret with this species is akin to the quest in mathematics for the answer to Fermat's Last Theorem - whoever succeeds will be instantly propelled into the aquarium 'Hall of Fame' alongside the likes of Hans Joachim Richter! To make matters worse, the true Altum Angelfish is sexually isomorphic (i.e., separating the genders is impossible by visual inspection alone), and so the only reliable way to obtain a potential breeding pair for any project aimed at finding this particular aquatic Philosopher's Stone is to obtain at least six juveniles (and preferably twelve!), and raise them to adulthood in a spacious aquarium. Furthermore, this aquarium needs to be deep - preferably two feet or more - and so the MINIMUM size of aquarium for this project will be something like 120" x 30" x 30". This will need to be furnished with bogwood tangles, plants that can stand subdued light levels (the fish's natural habitat resembles that of the Cardinal Tetra in being enclosed by forest canopy), probably some floating plants in addition, and the aforementioned unusual water chemistry. Any hope of success with captive breeding will probably require the expense of a reverse osmosis unit for water changes, and a considerable sum of money spent on blackwater tonic and peat filtration. Be advised, that ANY project aimed at cracking the secret of captive breeding of Altums will be very expensive, possibly more so than a Discus breeding project ...

Pterophyllum scalare, on the other hand, was first bred in the early 1900s, and the number of different selectively bred varieties available has mushroomed in the 90 or so years since the species was first fully domesticated. Indeed, the situation is now such that most Angelfish likely to be encountered in a dealer aquarium are the selectively bred varieties, while the 'original' silvery Angel Fish with the four vertical bars (which is still, in my opinion, the most impressive of all in the right setting) is a rarity.

And now, some personal observations.

I kept Angelfish back as a teenager, and it was this species that provided me, believe it or not, with my first breeding success of sorts. And, to my lasting delight (fond memories!) the pair that spawned were a male and female 'Classic' Angelfish, close to the original natural colour scheme, and they chose as their spawning site a large piece of slate that I had propped at a near-vertical angle against the aquarium side. The wonderful irony of this is that I had propped that slate to one side without actually intending to persuade the fishes to spawn, while deciding what to do with the slate in question as a decoration ... imagine my delight when my two favourite Angels had spawned upon it, and deposited something of the order of 150 eggs upon it!

To my even greater delight, the pair managed to guard the eggs against the other Angels in the aquarium, and guard the fry up to the point where they were free-swimming. Sadly, I did not have the facilities to raise the fry, and eventually, they doubtless became an unexpected live food banquet for the other Angels, but before this, the parents proved to be exemplary and devoted, and it was touching to watch them. Moreover, the male of the pair was a stunning fellow, with the silver body colour overlaid under certain lighting conditions with an amazing opalescent lavender sheen, with the head and dorsal part of the body above the lateral line a rich gold. The four bands were well-defined and prominent, and the pelvic fins a shimmering ice-blue. This magnificent specimen attained a depth of nine inches, and it was with much regret that I parted with him and his companions in preparation for my departure to university. Sadly, at that time, I did not have a camera with which to immortalise this wonderful fish, as he demonstrated amply the reasons why Angelfish continue to be popular even with seasoned aquarists.

Someday, I would like to recreate a much bigger version of that original Angelfish aquarium - and populate it with something like 20 juveniles of the 'Classic' natural colour scheme Angels. An 8 feet x 2 feet x 2 feet aquarium with 20 full-sized adult Angelfish swimming among carefully arranged naturalistic bogwood tangles and stands of Giant Vallisneria should make for a truly awesome display, but whether I shall ever have the funds for this and many other 'dream project aquaria' on my wish list is a moot point ... I'm sure Bill Gates wouldn't miss the odd $100,000 if he's reading this, and it would be spent very wisely

Meanwhile, a few notes from a recent magazine article on why Angels are sometimes less than angelic when breeding are useful here, for those whose would-be parents have a tendency to dine on caviar!

Three possibilities exist. First, mass production has led to fishes being raised for the market that have somehow 'lost the instinct'. A lack of predatory pressure and other pressures of natural selection in the aquarium has meant that Angels can be bred that do not need the parental instinct. In the wild, of course, incompetent parents fail to pass on their genes, and wild specimens are therefore much more likely to exhibit the kind of successful parenting behaviour that I witnessed back in 1979. Second, is is possible that much of the parental behaviour of Angelfish is learned rather than inherited, and that fry raised away from a pair of competent adults 'miss out' on a vital part of their education. Third, in nature, a young fish may pair with an experienced adult, before going on to forge a spawning relationship with another of its own generation (Angelfish are best described as 'serially monogamous' - faithful to a partner so long as the two are not separated). As the magazine article said quite succinctly, we throw together groups of ignorant teenagers and expect them to get it right first time!

Consequently, patience is the name of the game here (yes, that word again!). Give your parents several tries at mastering the art before resorting to artificial raising of the fry. Also, if your parents are close to the 'original' natural variety of Angelfish, chances are these will be more successful than the intensively cultivated fancy varieties, though there is no reason 'set in stone' why these cannot be good parents either. However, if your aim is raising top-quality show specimens, coutrship and mating will have a less than happy effect upon the finnage of Black Lace Veiltails, so to perpetuate a show winner, you may have to be prepared to sacrifice its trophy-winning attributes today for the prospect of a clutch of star performers tomorrow. If you are prepared to sacrifice spawns in the name of encouraging the 'natural' scheme of things, then believe me, it can be immensely rewarding, especially when you finally manage to bring a pair of adults to the stage where they care for their eggs and fry in the manner Nature intended. Angelfish can be, when the magic ingredients all finally gel together, every bit as conscientious as big Jaguar Cichlids or Dempseys, and a LOT less likely to erupt into open warfare if things don't go according to plan! My view is that quite a few of the failures are the result of Man messing around with a highly evolved and sophisticated creature without first pausing and asking a few pertinent questions, such as 'should I really be doing this in the first place?'

If you have to raise the fry away from the parents, because they have proven incompetent even after a dozen attempts, then first of all, ask yourself if you should be perpetuating their genes! In the case of show fishes, this tends to be a secondary consideration alongside finnage, and conformity to show standards, but if some of those standards included competent parenthood, perhaps we'd have fewer problems with our Angelfishes! But, if you're raising show fish, chances are you'll be stuck with the parents you have, and so, raising artificially will be your only option. If, on the other hand, you share my 'Back To Nature' tendencies with your breeding fish, and find fancy colour and finnage varieties a distraction that aren't needed because the natural colour scheme is impressive enough, then a change of parents might be appropriate. Of course, it's disappointing if you've raised your breeding pair from nickel-sized juveniles, only to find that they won't breed "properly", and you may be asking yourself if someone else got a better deal from that same batch of juveniles. Well, shop around. Hunt for juveniles from several different sources, so that the chance of inbreeding is minimised, and if possible, mix shop-bought and local-bred juveniles to diversify the gene pool even more. Here, a judicious policy of "save 'em, collect 'em, swap 'em with your friends" may pay dividends, even though I do NOT advocate treating them like Beanies in other respects

Some day, I want another pair like my 1979 pair. And this time, I'll photograph them. Because a good pair of natural colour scheme Angelfishes are wonderful to behold, especially if, like my 1979 fishes possessed, they have that 'ladder' pattern in the soft dorsal and anal fins, of the kind that seems to have been bred out of too many specimens these days. Incidentally, according to the old Innes book, the specific name scalare translates as 'ladder-like' ...

Enjoy!



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

A nice, and timely, discourse. I just bought my first angelfish after about 25 years in the hobby. I wanted a more mid/upper water fish for my Bolivian ram tank. I only picked up one because while I do hope the rams will spawn I wasn't after two spawning cichlid species in only a 29 gallon tank. My angelfish adds a stately presence to the upper half of the tank, and so far he/she has left the Bolivian rams alone. I'm sure the angelfish will snack on ram fry (if I'm blessed to have any), but if a few survive they'll likely be prime examples of their species.

Now that I've finally broken down and bought one of those less than manly angelfish, I've grown immensely fond of them...so perhaps in the future there will be a separate 29 gallon with six baby angelfish with the future hope of a pair.

Eric

Actually, altums have been breeding in captivity for a while. A ring of Japanese aquarists, headed by Hiroshi Azuma, have had particularly good success in breeding wild caught altums.

Tell us more Klee, tell us more! Spawning Altums? Wow ...

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

If I recall correctly, there's a link here. The sit'es pretty old. The actual article is in English, so just click around until you find it.

http://www2.odn.ne.jp/azumanettaigyo/05write/top_write.htm

Also, there are several books containing his photographed documentation of this event.

Braz Walker authored one of them, I think.

Ther've been some more or less documented accounts of altums breeding in Germany (the world's center of angelfish breeding activity), Singapore, and Taiwan as well.

Great article, Calilessia



[span class="edited"][Edited by Klee 2004-08-06 20:02][/span]

This is probably completely irrelevant but Scalare in latin means to climb. Hence spanish and portuguese Escalar. I don't believe any of the other romance languages kept this word but english also has a variant: Scale as in scale a mountain.Scalare probably refers to to the tall magnificence of angelfish.