Are These WC Rio Nanay Angels...? UPDATE!!!!

[NoNameLeft]

I thought I would share an update to this original thread I started a little over a year ago!

Here’s the link to that original thread.

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/are-these-wc-rio-nanay-angels.683881/

It’s taken over a year but as of yesterday I finally have a group of real “Rio Nanay” angels!

In May last year due to a reason a could never find out why something blew through my tank and I lost about 80% of my stock including those angels in the original thread. I still couldn’t track down real wild caught angels but I did get a group of 8 dime sized Albino Dantum’s and I raised them up! They were/are so gorgeous. I really enjoyed having them!!! I was sad to have to rehome them but I can not manage so many tanks

This weekend I was able to order a group of Rio Nanay’s and I took the plunge and received them yesturday. They are doing great and without a doubt the real deal! I’m hoping they all make it and am already planning my larger tank upgrade for them!

I also attached a few pictures of my albinos as I’m pretty proud I raised them from so tiny to such beautiful fish.

It took a year but I finally have my wild angels

 

[J. H.]

Really cool. They have upturned noses like altums, but their bodies are shaped like a scalare, and their dorsal fins look a teeny bit like Leopoldi. Are they a Scalare variant or something else?

 

[NoNameLeft]

Rio Nanays are a wild scalare! These are not Altums.

Still so pretty and so glad to have them!

 

[NoNameLeft]

Should say wild Altums.

 

[J. H.]

Rio Nanays are a wild scalare! These are not Altums.

Still so pretty and so glad to have them!

Should say wild Altums.

I smell a contradiction here.

 

[NoNameLeft]

I smell a contradiction here.

Sorry it was a long day yesterday! I was meaning that yes the Rio Nanay’s are a type of wild scalare but they are not wild Altums or actually any form of Altum.

Hope that makes a bit more sense!

 

[Ogertron3000]

Good work, looking nice. Are the rio nanay hard to find overall or just the wild caught ones? Are the wilds easy to breed in captivity?
Tank bred ones are getting more common here , a bit more affordable too but wild ones cost a fortune if you can find them.
The albinos are nice too, had some myself but they got wiped out by a white spot outbreak and now they are impossible to find.

 

[NoNameLeft]

Both the wilds and tank bred are near impossible to find where I’m located....if anything I’d say the tank bred ones would be an even rarer find here. I’ve never attempted to breed angels but if I should get a pair out of this group it is something as may try my hand at. I’ve heard that wild scalare are easier to breed than the near impossible altums so I guess I’ll find out! I’m sure other people in the hobby in my area would appreciate it!

Regarding the albino dantums to the best of my knowledge the last shipment seen here of them was the one my group came in on a year ago. They are pretty rare. There is one pair in that group and I know the person who has that pair is going to try to breed them as well.

 

[papasmurf]

Looking nice...They are hard to find for sure. A local store has some recently but they were $65 each and were not nanays when I got there to check them out....I was not going to pay that much for them anyways but wanted to see them. I somewhat by chance found a wild adult at another store that was leftover from a group of wild leopoldi and was mislabeled. I am not sure how they got mixed in together as the nanays are really distinctive when you finally see them. The fish I bought has some gorgeous and almost unbelievable yellow spots/blotches on the rear part of the body....these seem to vary in specimens from gold, to orange, to brown and of course has the distinctive spot in the dorsal fin with a strong blue sheen over the front part of the body. About a year ago I acquired a domestic group (F2 or F3) of juvies from someone that had a breeding group of real nanays. They are about 3/4 grown right now and developing the spots and blue on their bodies. I hope to get one or two more wild adults to mix into the group before long. The problem lies in that these fish are labeled as "peru altum" many times which may be one of two or three types of fish collected in the area...the nanays are distinctive from the others but get mixed and labeled incorrectly and vice versa probably mostly by accident. I did purchase some "peru altums" a while back from a store and was told that they would get the spots and blue bodies (like the real nanays) though they turned out to be the more common type of "peru altum" collected in the area without the spotting and blue coloration and not actual nanays. From what I have gathered, the real nanay identicifaction characteristics are the spot in the dorsal with can sometimes be elongated to look like a comma or exclamation mark, the blue on the gill plate and body, and the spots and marbling that occurs on the body as they mature. On young fish, the dorsal spot is clearly visible and is usually the only way to identify them properly. I would not purchase any without seeing the actual fish for sale as a lot of vendors are selling the wrong fish as nanays, probably mostly because that is what they were sold to them as.

 

[NoNameLeft]

Papasmurf, can you post some pictures of your Rio’s and the ones commonly referred as “Peru altum”? I agree with that term/name being misleading plus kind of a blanket name for many wild caught scalare in the area.

The vender I ordered them from (this was my first time purchasing fish online!) did send me a picture so I could see most of the group before buying. I agree that if you’ve seen a Nanay you know how distinctive they look. 5 out of my group are beyond a shadow of a doubt Nanay and nice ones at that, another I’m pretty sure is but can’t say 100 % and 2 I don’t think are. Definitely wilds of some type and beautiful but I doubt Nanay’s. Im still over the moon overall but I guess long story short I agree that even venders are given these fish as wild caught with various names so it just confuses everyone even more.