# altuvii or compressus



## rhomkeeper (Mar 31, 2008)

i have owned this guy for 3 or 4 years now, and i have always assumed that he was a compressus, but recently i looked through pages of posts on this fourm i have found a few fish identical to mine, that frank has id'ed as altuvii, so my curosity has been sparked. i got it from a wholesaler in new jersey that i know imports most of his south american stuff from venezuala and peru (or did at that point in time at least) anyway, just wondering what the man thinks.


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

The last 2 pics appear to be Altuvie. If Frank says its Altuvie you can be 90% sure it is...


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## waldron (Jan 15, 2007)

Hey man nice fish, , yea and if frank says it , like giggles said it's about 90% accurate


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## Ja'eh (Jan 8, 2007)

What are the physical differences between the two so as to determine an ID here? Or does it depend completely on locality? Rhoms, comps and altuveis all have similarities, rhoms being the easiest to determine from the trio or at least most of the times.


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

Ja said:


> What are the physical differences between the two so as to determine an ID here? Or does it depend completely on locality? Rhoms, comps and altuveis all have similarities, rhoms being the easiest to determine from the trio or at least most of the times.


The spotting/barring is different on both species. On Altuvei it will stop at the lateral line and /or be sparingly spotted below the lateral line where on compressus it is much more obvious. OPEFE shows excellent examples of both fish on showing what i'm trying to say. Altuvei's are from Venezuela also where I believe compressus is not found.


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## rhomkeeper (Mar 31, 2008)

there is also somthing about the head structure, compressus is more concave than altuvii but without anything to compare it to i can't tell 100%. i know it has never had any spots below the lateral line and i raised it from about 2 or 3 inches. locality is also an issue as the good doctor said, altuvii only come from venezula, but unfortunatly i didn't pull it out of the water, just know where the guy i got it from used to import from,which was mostly venezula, but no guarentee


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