Over the years I got to be quite a connossieur of altums. Though my personal preference was for Brazilian, I found that Columbian had a nice, piquant after-dinner flavor - heady, but with a touch of mellow smoothness. Peruvian, on the other hand... YECCHH!
Anyone on the slightly altered movie quote?
Seriously... What do you mean by better? Not that I have any idea what I'm talking about with altums but wouldn't the *better* one be whatever one you personally want to deal with, collect, breed etc?
Most altums you find are wild caught.
after that you need to look at the characteristics of each.
note that the species is classified partly based on the characteristics of the fish(these characteristics are part of what makes the class Altum).
Lately the peruvian strain has been scrutinized and there is talk of a seperate specieds for them..but so far I don't think that debate has been settled.(some feel it is scalare , some feel altum..others feel seperate species)
I like the look of the altums and find the peruvian different enough to make it look slighly more unique.
but as far as that is concerned..beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
keep in mind that the altums are more difficult to keep....if you like keeping discus you'l prob be fine with the altums
well, since common names are easy to mess up, the one you usually find in pet stores is P. scalare, and then theres P.emieki and P.altum. I no nothing about the differences between them or where they come from though.