Oscar Coloring

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jackylar

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Nov 24, 2005
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Waitsburg, Washington
I have two oscars. They are both Tiger Oscars with alot of bright red markings. I bouth them at the end of June / early July. They are still juveniles and are probably about 4" - 5". One was twice as big as the other one. They both grew but the smaller one pretty much stayed half the size of the larger one. Until recently. Then overnight the smaller Oscer cought up to the larger one in size. Unfortunely, it lost almost all of it's red coloring. It is almost a pure black now! Neither one of them appears to be sick. If anything, they seem to be more active than ever chasing the other fish around.

I thought maybe it was the diet even though the larger one's coloring is still bright. So three weeks ago I added to their diet the medium pellet Hikari Cichlid Gold that says it promotes coloring but it seems to have had no effect. Before I added the Cichlid Gold I was feeding them a variety of frozen foods, Wardley Tropical Flakes, Aquarian Tropical Floating Pellets, freeze dried worms and shrimp, and Algae Wafers (this is really for my two plecos but the Oscars love them too!). I read somewhere that a varied diet is healthier for them. Could it be the diet?

If it is normal for the color to fade as it ages, that's all right, although I do like the red. I just want to be certain there isn't something going on that I should be concerned about.

Thanks

Jacky
 
Your diet sounds all right, but the colors should rather INTENSIFY than fade as they age...try feeding some hikari bio-gold and krill (a little pricey though) but it really intensifies their colors. Also, you may want to try and find last month's issue of Tropical Fish Hobbyist, it has a article about vitamin c and cichlids (oscars to be specific) and coloration. That's what you want, to make sure the food contains (L-ascorbic acid or just ascorbic acid). If that doesn't work too well try supplementing your feedings. And always check expiration dates on foods for your fish, most have a shelf life of only 6 months, so don't grab old food :)
 
With oscars it is the other way around.....thier color fades as they grow. Many people can probably show you pictures of thier oscars at a small size and now a large and you can deffinatly tell. Probably just a combo of aging and stress. Keep up on the water quality. Remember now instead of having one large fish and one small fish you now have two large fish.

Chad
 
Well this may be true, you guys on the E coast are lucky lol. Over on the West here, they come in all stressed and faded.
 
Sure dont seem like we are lucky.....You guys got all the sweet deals on tanks and all that stuff. I wanna be in socal 90% of the time when I see a tank for sale.:nilly:

Chad
 
Ha me too lol Mapquest says this:

Total Est. Time: 19 hours, 19 minutes
Total Est. Distance: 1213.76 miles

So no go for me either...my explorer is a nice car, but needs some internal work (wintertime projects) to be able to go more than about 100 miles per day...100 Miles Per Day = 24 days round trip lol plus all the rest...hotel accomodations (unless I wanted to put a mattress in the tank) lol.
 
With most adult Tiger Oscars I've seen, the majority of their color is black. They may still have some, but very few, red stripping left and the red around their Ocelleris will remain. But that's the only thing that will be consistant.
 
Well then your just getting shafted! You live on the west coast AND you don't have any access to the sweet west coast deals. That sucks

Chad
 
I know, I know...:(...Where are those 150 gallon with tank/stand/filtration/lids/lights/heater/pump/fish for $150?! :( lol
 
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