Green Terror- White or Gold Saum?

[colbywebre47]

I just bought a juvenile green terror from the fish store and he is about 3 inches long. This guy who sold it to me told me it would grow up to look like the adult gold saum in his personal fish tank. However, the green terror I bought has white fins instead of orange. Did he lie to me or does the orange coloration come in later when the fish gets bigger?

 

[BigManAquatics]

Not sure, but the guy who owns one of my LFSs said in his experience the white ones seem to be more aggressive.

 

[Hellfishguy]

Silver saum are pretty rare; odds are you have a gold one.

 

[chromedome52]

You probably have a white Saum version of Andinoacara rivulatus. Don't see them very often these days, but they used to be fairly available. It is a genetic variation of the same species as Red or Gold Saum. I don't recall for certain, but I believe it was a recessive gene, so they can pop up in even regular Green Terror spawns. It will not turn orange but stay white.

Silver Saum/Silbersaum is normally used to refer to A. stalsbergi, which comes from further into Peru. It was actually the first fish imported and given the name Green Terror, which then sent fanatics crazy looking for the "real" Green Terror when the Gold Saum became the commonly available species. Initially, many thought that the Silver Saum was the "real" rivulatus. Having a white edged form of the Gold Saum confused things even more. However, the scale pattern differentiates the two quite easily, as rivulatus has dark spots on a green iridescent body, while the stalsbergi has iridescent spots on a darker body.

The names were all straightened out in 2009 when Rican and Novak described Andinoacara, and Schindler and Staeck described the species stalsbergi and verified that the Gold Saum was, in fact, rivulatus. However, such information changes slowly in the aquarium hobby, and many are still confused by these species.