# common oscar (green)



## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

Hi, i recently rescued two very large oscars. A red one and what i was told was a tiger oscar. I have done some research and finally figured out it was actually a common or green oscar. I just thought it had the worst color of any tiger oscar on the planet LOL. Now that i know the truth about what kind he is i was wondering if there is anyway to improve on his color. He is housed in a 135 gallon with his best buddy (saved from a 75 gallon where him and his buddy were housed with a adult flowerhorn that escaped its divider on a regular basis) , I feed them hikari cichlid gold pellets, tetra sticks, krill. He is always very washed out , appears a mostly yellowish gray color 99 percent of the time and every once in awhile will show his black splotches and stripes. I want to encourage these. He gets along well with his buddy, swim everywhere together. He is also housed with a snake skin gourami and some food sized fry. Here are some pics that show what im talking about. (the wounds are gone now, they were from previous owner) I have had it for about 7 days now. It was at the other owner for 3 yrs. I asked about his color and was told he was greyish yellow most of the time, rarely showing stripes etc.. Anybody have any ideas for encouraging the darker coloration ? Any advice would be welcome, i have never had to try to bring out a oscars color pattern before. Im at a loss.

Here is what it looks like 99 percent of the time :










Here is what it looks like with the black (very rare)
I would like for him to look this way as much as possiable and encourage this coloration.


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## oscarlover43055 (Jun 7, 2008)

That means hes mad lol.


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

He must be the maddest fish on the planet then. LOL. He spends 23 hours 55 minutes a day the washed out color. I have owned oscars before and understand how they blanch with mood etc., this fish is always pale. His lower jaw is even white.


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## oscarlover43055 (Jun 7, 2008)

No, I mean when he gets the stripes. My 2 commons do the same thing. Mine have a lil more orange. I feed frozen beef heart from omega one. To bad I gave them away about 3 hours ago  sniff sniff They got too big for a 55 i had them in and wanted the best for them. They are now with a cousin with a fish room, lol. guess I got a fish room too.


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

Oh, i see, then he is very happy all the time :lol: I have noticed his orange is comming in better now, brighter orange and more of it. I think they are attempting to start spawning activity. I also posted in the oscar section over at monsterfishkeepers. They seem to think the O might be wild. I had not considered that but now that they mention it , the fish does have the vertical stripes on the back half of the body and dark splotches on the front half. When resting it is very olive colored. I found a pic of a wild oscar from brazil that looked VERY similar. Here is a link to the image, there is a better pic of the fish about halfway down the posts, its the first fish in a string of pics of wild o's. Let me know if you think it could be the same type.

http://images.search.yahoo.com/imag...11r7un29j&sigi=1137jod9q&sigb=1374c4kb0&tt=18


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## oscarlover43055 (Jun 7, 2008)

Some of those oscars are uber sweet. It could be wild. Did you ask the person you got it from? I wonder how they got to super red oscars from those things? How would you?... hmmm


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

I asked him where he got them, he told me he bought them 3 yrs ago in a pet shop all ready grown to adults. So who knows where they came from. Im just so happy to have gotten them out the half of a 75 gallon tank, cant imagine them being stuffed into that small space for 3 yrs. The other side of the divider had a adult flowerhorn in it that would escape the divider all the time. Poor babies.

Alot of the solid red oscars are deep red, and alot of the wild oscars have a intense red/orange speckling along the edges of stripes etc.. so i can see where they came from. My all time favorite O's were always the oldfashioned wild O's that had red, brown, yellow , olive and black in them. Im not sure where they came from but they didnt look like tiger oscars exactly and were very colorful, the reddish brown in them was so beautiful .


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## oscarlover43055 (Jun 7, 2008)

Ever been to Florida? Go to some canals and use a live goldfish and see what happens! you will want to get some more tanks lol!


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## BlackShark11k (Feb 16, 2007)

Most of the pictures in that link are Astronotus crassipinnis- a close relative of the oscar. You definitely have a pure oscar, Astronotus occelatus. It is unlikely wild, but likely close. Definitely not a "morph" or anything. Feeding more krill will help with the color.

Good luck,
Art


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

Wow , i never thought i would have a pure oscar, i had never even seen one in person or knew anyone that had one. I paid the previous owner 30 dollars for him. LOL.


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

Here are some pics i took of it today, about one week after arriving. His wounds have healed up and he is looking better i think, he started eating yesterday as well, that should help .










hunting fry (have not shown much interest in that activity)













































Here he is upset about something today, very dark for a few seconds then back to olive :


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## Splash55 (Jan 24, 2008)

Hey Sue nice oscars. I think their color will be more defined the longer you have them. After mine were in the tank for about a month I noticed a tremendous difference in coloring. Mine were rescued also. Mine were about six inches both in a twenty gallon and some africans had been picking on them. That would be Smith and Wesson. There is a couple of threads on here with pics of them. Splash


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## BlackShark11k (Feb 16, 2007)

cichlidgirl1 said:


> Wow , i never thought i would have a pure oscar, i had never even seen one in person or knew anyone that had one. I paid the previous owner 30 dollars for him. LOL.


Sorry if I was confusing- all oscars to my knowledge are pure, meaning not crossed with anything else or a different species, like many fish in the amphilophus complex.

The pictures in the link you provided were A. crassipinnis.


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

Thanks everybody.

Im sure if anyone was unclear it was me LOL. What i meant by pure, was a pure strain found in nature, not always wild but same color morphs as the wild ones. The link with the pic that i thought looked similar is a wild strain of oscar from brazil. (not the crassipinnis, those are super rare now and look nothing like mine LOL) I talked to the owner of the fish in the link and he said mine looks very similar, thinks mine could be a F1 or F2 from the same sub species as his wild one was. usually you see mostly man made strains of oscars, the fry from mixing the different color morphs.


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

Hi, got a oscar update. They laid eggs once all ready, then ate them LOL. Thats ok cause i would not have anywhere to keep the babies anyway. They are looking good, gaining some weight and most important of all : The nasty case of hole in the head is improving daily now. The green one had a rather large deep pit between the eyes (just under eyes) that has healed and is closing back up now, almost completly gone now. The red one had multi deep pits and the smaller ones have closed up and healed leaving just one large one that is half the size it was before. I assume the hole in head is improving with good water conditions, good diet and every other week i keep melafix in the water all week. The green one is still olive colored and the red one has darkened up to a nice dark orange and black, still the pumpkin shade of orange just alot deeper shade now. I still have not named them though. My husband came home from Iraq on leave for two weeks (just went back this week) but he really likes them and asked me if he can take care of them and if they can be his. I told him yes, so i guess its up to him to name them LOL. Im thinking of asking him if he wants to call them bert and ernie. Bert can be short for big bertha LOL. *** been real busy but i will try to post some current pics of them in a few days.


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