Colorless Oscar

[Colbyg]

My Oscar is a good fish. He will continue to live in a ten gallon aquarium for another month until his new larger home is set up. Then him and all of his tank buddies will move to their new home. He is 4-5 inches long. He lives with a jeweled cichlid, and a red finned blue botia and 3 mystery snails. I change 40% of the water weekly and feed him three meals a day. The first 2 meals consist of goldfish pellets now that the Oscar Grow pellets have run out. The last meal of the day consists of more pellets and either feeder goldfish or earthworms. He is a tiger oscar however he no longer displays any of his original colorings. He is almost totally gray with a few random red scales. What can I do to make the colorings more predominate?

[Tightdog1]

first off you need to take him out of that 10g ASAP!!!

he should be in at least 55g and maybe ever bigger if he is to be with other fish. he has no color because he is so stressed for being in such a small tank or he is sick.

oscars can get up to 16" normally maxed out at about 12", yours may be stunted now and may not even reach 10", becareful. you should also feed him other foods like frozen beef heart, frozen bloodworms, etc. fish need a variety of food otherwise they can get digestive diseases.

[GEV83]

Depending on how long The Oscar has been in there depends on your fishes condition. Oscars range between 12-14" in length and produce alot of waste. How big of a tank are they all being transfered into??? Unless your oscar has been in there for a long time then he should be ok my Jag was in a 20gal for about 2 years then put to a 35gal for about a year never had money for tanks took the tanks from my parents then finally got a 60gal where she kicks back in now I see no signs of stunting thank God. She has reached close to 12" I thought she stopped growing along time ago but my parents say other words. So I measured and she grew about 2-3" which I never noticed. But yeah dont do what I did. I am now planning on upgarding my tank even though I have met the min. Remember bigger is better as far as aquariums go.

[Tightdog1]

GER1023, yea i got 2 pacus in my 55g they are about 8-9" (the lady at petsmart said they onnly get 6", yea right!) and i also got 5 blue acaras including my breeding pair. i would get rid of the pacus but no 1 wants them and im saving for a bigger tank but its coming along slow. DONT GET STUCK LIKE ME.

[GEV83]

Yeah I bought on because I had a overly out dated book saying they only get 12". That and I was a little kid liked the color bought it without my mom's permission and put it in a 10gal. It died dont remember why though. But yeah you should find a place to put those pacu's. We are planning on moving soon but not a sure thing but if we do I want to make a small pond small to me is big to others. I would like some pacus and pleco's in there. Need to do more research on ponds though. But yeah a 55gal is the min for a Oscar according to the website I would say the min should be 75gal since they get up 14" and produce alot of waste. You should try giving them back to a LFS for some fish food or something or for nothing just to get rid of them. Dont know.

[Tightdog1]

yea 75g is more of a staple around here (AC) for a line oscar, 55g at the minimum, the 55g i have now used to have 2 oscars in it ( i bought the tank (dry of course ) from my neighbor) but they died, dont know how but they did.