Wild Silver Saum

[Rudy]

http://www.cichlidgallery.com/albums/album64/100_0016_IMG.sized.jpg
http://www.cichlidforums.com/postimages/2003-03-22/9714-001.jpg

This fish is surprisingly mean. She is more aggressive than any saum I have ever owned.

[Corona]

a wild silver what? hehe looks just like a green terror or blue acra

[Rudy]

Hi Corona. She is indeed a green terror as sold in Fish stores, but not a true green terror as I orignally thought.

[Corona]

I see, I dont realy know the diferance, maybe you could shed some light on it for me.

[Rudy]

True Aequidens rivulatus apparently have not been seen in the hobby for over 15 years. The reason being is that Saums (seen above and what are sold in stores as green terrors) are first of all to most more beautiful and much less aggressive. They are the ones with the gold, yellow, and red tip. The confusion comes with a rivulatus that is the silver tipped variety like the one above. True gt have pure white tips (silver saums) and do not contain the different variants of color. The deciding and apparently most recognizable factor is the scales. If you look at the above fish, the green is centered around black flanks. In a true gt they center around green flanks and there is no black. The only flaw with this is that when my gt were smaller (I had two) they fo not have the black color on the scales at all and when in a certain mood it does not either. It is a really touchy situation as I had two that I thought were real, however neither of them are as far as I can tell. I know Rex has pics of a real gt so hopefully he can post that link I can remember right now what it is.

There are many fish in the hobby right now that are sold as gt. Large variants getting 12 inches + and some staying in the 8 inch range. Different color variants but none being the true Aequidens rivulatus. To really confuse the issue there is a white saum which looks and is a completely different fish from all the above. (rex I know has a link to that as well)

The concept of saums is simple. Why would a wholesaler travel to a place in South America that apparently is quite scary to get a fish that doesn't look half as good and is much more aggressive when they can import saums? My answer.....BECAUSE I WANT ONE@!!!!!:evil: