guide in keeping altum angels

hi, i hope that bros out there who are expert in keeping altum angels to give in details step by step on how to keep this beautiful fish. I would like to try but no confidence and no knowledge on keeping them. Hope bros here can help..

[armageddon]

there is no static formula to rearing of altums. but would say. foundation of fish keeping is there. having a strong foudnation in fish keeping will allow u to ease ur process of keeping altums and lessen the chances of death. do many its not theat difficult to keep. its rather the choosing of altums and treatment are the ones that are the most tedious.

agree.basic foundation must be there

Cut & Paste from my post
http://www.arofanatics.com/forums/sh...=341913&page=7
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I guess what I'm going to write in this thread is nothing new. YOU might say that this is exactly what you have been and/or are doing from the day you bought your first Altum Angels(AA) home BUT with different result. Well, frankly speaking I do not have any answer to that.

Before this batch of AA I had 3 adult altum which is from 2006 batch. However, due to my carelessness and stupidity, during one water change in Jan/2008, I suffered a pH crashed so bad that I left with discus and some CT. Come APR/2008 I decided to start preparing my tank for new batch of AA. This time round I'm determined to have a higher rate of success during aclimatisation period.

Preparing
I remove all the plants and leave the driftwood in the tank. Change the water and replace filter sponges and clean all the rest of filter mediums. I'm running on 3 filters, 1 OHF and 2 Cannisters. I change the cannister first every 3 weeks and takes about 3 months before I completed the maintenance all of my filters. Water change every Wed and either Sat/Sun depends on availability. When I'm on biz travel then no water change for the period except water top-up by my wife.

At the same time, I start treating the waters with medication and conditioners. The main diseases/problems with AA are columnaris, fin rot, scale protrusion, wasting diseases and etc. These diseases are caused by Gram + and Gram - bacteria. What does it means? I'm not sure, you can read up in the net for more information. My concern is the cure. Someone who interested with water bacteria may add. So I started to ask around for medication. Upon completion of medication cycles, I continue with half dosage of the same medication. I brought down the pH to 6.0 with discus water conditioner and double dosage of black water solution. I bought a heater to maintain the temperature at 30 degree celcius. The result... my discus started to lay eggs. This shows I'm on the right track. We as a family got excited and the next day the eggs are gone. Repeated a couple of times but gone in few days. This continue till 3rd week of Aug/2008 when the first of 3 batches of AA introduced to the tank with a week. Since the introduction of AA to the tank, no more discus eggs to be found.

How I introduced my AAs
I prepared a large pail (bought this pail in GIANT, JB) of my tank water the night before and minimal aeration it with air pump to maintain the pH at 6.0. Upon arrival to LFS, I chose the fishes, I personally unpack to the tank for selection. Test LFS tank pH and confirmed at 6.0. Bagged the water from the tank and left home with 5 AA in a bag. Upon arrival from LFS, I tested water in pail and tank to ensure that it matched with the same pH as LFS water. I floated the plastic bags in my tank thinking that I'll open it up later after couple of hours. Well, I discovered that I do not have much patience to wait after an hour or so, and out they goes from the bag. I placed my net into the pail before another round of pH checks. I open the bag inverted with the mouth submerge in the large pail. I read somewhere, there is some chemical reaction upon exposing with air, something to do with amonia spike Not so sure, I do take note of the method only not the scientific portion. I'm a hobbyist not scientist No feeding for the next couple of days (maybe to the dismay of CT and discus) and continue half medication dosage. Monitoring starts and at the same time I'm being monitored by my wife for spending too much time on my AA.

Feeding
Started out with flakes (not NLS,) and freeze Blood Worm(BW), 2x/day. Today solely on BW still 2x/day with 8 cubes for all fishes. This is to minimise water contimination from left over food and high level of waste in tank.

In Summary
In summary following are the list of items I did prior to the purchase of my AA.

Constant water pH6.0 using conditioner;
Water treated with medication;
Clean filters;
Water temperature constant at 30 degree celcius;
Prepare medications for common AA diseases;
Close monitoring of AA;
Do not overfeed (my personal preference. Wild fishes should not be FAT);
Do not buy more than 5 in one batch;
Choose ONLY healthy AA during purchase;
Choose as AA as young as possible, less than or equal 1 inch; I find that it is true, it has higher survival rate, tolerance for medication and aclimatise better. LFS Uncle in of the Tampines shopping centre who used to keep large AA, share this with me and not to overfeed.
Please Note
They been with me since AUG/2008 with one casualty. I not saying that this is the proven method neither a definitive guide to prepare AA survival in your home/office tanks. This is based on my personal experience, which I share at the request of Bro adriantan78. So try at your own risk, in term of your AA survival as well as your pocket. In an event when both your AA and pocket burnt, I shall NOT be liable for your own actions by following my personal experience. At the same time, I do hope that these experience will help those interested to start with AA and experience similar or more AA survival rate during their crucial period.

Thank you for reading and best of luck in your AA endeavours!

Cut & Paste on behalf of Bro illumnae;
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I feel that the important thing in stablizing altums is a good preventive medication course. Treat in this order: bacterial, internal parasite then external parasite. This is based on my limited knowledge of how long each pathogen takes to kill a fish.

The worst enemy of altum keepers is columnaris (bacterial), so I'd start off with the 4 day recommended full course of API Furan-2. I've had great personal success with treating columnaris using this method, and a number of my losses were due to not treating this early enough.

Next, go with internal parasite cleansing. Jungle Labs Internal Parasite Guard is, in my opinion, the best commercially branded medication for this. This is because it contains both metronidazole and praziquantel. This should take care of most, if not all, internal parasites that may infect your altums. Most other brands only contain metronidazole, which is very good in itself, but does not clear tapeworm. This is ok in bred fishes, but in wild fish, you never know whether your fish was in contact with tapeworm previously or not. If you have the raw forms of both medications, you can go ahead and use them as well in the recommended dosage.

For external parasites, I have no personal experience as my altums came free of such parasites from a visual inspection. However, I have been doing some brief research on this as I just got in a batch of wild discus, and while the ones I chose did not have external parasites, I observed some of their tankmates in the LFS did have. The popular one seems to be Waterlife Parazin. If you don't want to get this, Jungle Labs Parasite Guard seems to be a good alternative. Take note that this is not the same as the Internal Parasite Guard as recommended earlier for internal parasites.

After a full course, continue to quarantine your altums for at least 6 weeks to observe if there's any reccurrance and if so, treat accordingly. I know alot of people don't follow this QT procedure and still get very good results, but if you want to play really safe, I feel that an extended QT is essential. I will be quarantining my wilds (altums and heckels) for 2-3 months before introducing them into their main tank.

After all this and your fish are clear of any harmful "denizens", you can proceed to acclimitize them to higher ph. This is as healthy altums are hardy altums. I am now doing 50-70% water changes with water direct from the tap (only anti-chlorine added) and my altums don't show any adverse reaction at all (remember, my tap water is 7.6 from the tap).

All the best for your altums!
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Thread can be found here

[illumnae]

Something to add on to my post which bro FND helped paste here. If you have an emergency, you can safely carry out Furan-2 and Jungle Labs Internal Parasite Guard dosing concurrently. While generally it's advisable to avoid mixing medication, I noticed confirmed internal bacteria from my fish midway through Furan-2 dosing and I dosed Internal Parasite Guard at the same time...both medications still worked well.

Hey since you guys are dealing so much with Altum Angels, is there any possibility of keeping Angels of Altum Angles with like shrimp and small fish like Boraras brgittaes? Sounds a bit crazy but just checking

Hi,

Not recommended. They will eat them up in no time.

Originally Posted by FND

Hi,

Not recommended. They will eat them up in no time.

Oh okay..well too bad then. thx anyways

Must water be 30 degrees?