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- The best places to acquire an oscar
- The gear you need to create the right environment for your oscar
- Feeding and healthcare tips to prolong your oscar’s life
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Meet the Oscar
Oscars are very unique, and with the proper setup, they can be a treat to care for in home aquariums. Their unique,
almost doglike behavior and ability to recognize their owners make them seem more like a true pet than beautiful tropical fish that you can observe but not interact with.
Natural History
There are two distinct and defined oscar species: Astronotus ocellatus and Astronotus crassipinnis. Part of the cichlid family, Astronotus ocellatus has its natural range in the Amazon River drainage in northern South America, while Astronotus crassipinnis lives in southern and western South America. Both species inhabit slow-moving waters where they hide in and among root tangles and submerged structures, and under overhanging branches. Today, oscars also inhabit various tropical and subtropical areas around the world. Southern Florida, for example, is home to a great number of oscars.
Appearance
Oscars are available in a number of different strains, all of which evolved from the common oscar (Astronotus ocellatus). The common, or “black” oscar, has heavily muted colors that give it an almost black-and-white appearance. Although color varies depending on the strain, all adult
oscars are large fish, reaching and often exceeding 12" (30.5 cm) in length at less than two years of age. Also, almost all oscars, regardless of their strain, have eyespots (round, dark spots that mimic the appearance of the fish’s eyes) on the base of the tail fin.
The following are some of the different oscar colors that are available. Most strains are developed in captivity through selective breeding to achieve unique colorations.
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Albino: Albino oscars are white and have red eyes. True albino oscars (those that completely lack pigmentation) are a rarity, but there are three recognized substrains of the albino oscar: the albino red, the albino tiger, and the snow oscar. The main difference among them is the amount of red they exhibit. Albino tigers have a reddish, tigerlike pattern; albino red oscars have a bright, solid pink color; and snow oscars usually have a solid white color with an almost yellow dorsal stripe running from nose to tail.
- Gold/bronze: Gold oscars are dull-colored red oscars. Originally introduced by fish farmers from Asia, many hobbyists today enjoy the subdued coloration of these oscars. Oscars considered “bronze” are just gold oscars with darker coloration.
- Green: This name has been attached to wild-type or common oscars that exhibit more green than usual. Both tigers and common oscars begin to show more green naturally when they become very old.
- Lemon: A relatively new strain, lemon oscars have brilliant yellow and white coloring that becomes even brighter when the fish reach maturity. Some specimens can be as bright yellow as a canary, while others may show just a dusting of yellow. This strain is also known as the lemon-drop oscar.
- Leucistic: Oscars that have a very pale yellow or red coloration and red eyes are referred to as leucistic, leutino, or xanthic oscars. These fish are often confused with albinos, but a true albino has no pigment at all and appears fully white. Sometimes leucistic oscars show a sooty coloration on the fins or body that varies or disappears over time.
- Red: First developed in 1969, red oscars are available from almost any dealer who carries tropical fish. Considered by many to be far better looking than the wild-type (common) oscar, red oscars vary as to how much red they display. Oscars with especially red flanks are referred to as super reds. Red oscars that never completely grow into their red coloring usually take on a brown cast and are referred to as chocolate oscars.
- Sunshine: Gold oscars with a high level of yellow pigmentation are known as sunshine oscars. The increased yellow is usually only on the lower half of the body.
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Tiger: The tiger was the first commercial variant of the common oscar and remains the most popular of all oscar types. Tiger oscars have orange or red coloration while also retaining the colors of the common oscar. Red tiger oscars have an increased red coloration on the lower half of the body that sometimes extends far up into the flanks, resulting in the fish exhibiting more red than the black or brown of a common.
Veiltails
In addition to the large amount of oscar strains, many come in a long-finned form referred to as veiltails. The fins vary in length among individual fish, but especially long veiltails are often too difficult for casual aquarists to handle. Veiltailed oscars are more prone to fin damage, and consequently, diseases such as fin and tail rot.
Personality
In general, oscars aren’t beloved pets because of their
attractiveness. Their scales don’t shimmer with bright colors; their fins don’t flow gracefully behind them; and they have large, protruding, buglike eyes. The reason oscars are so popular among aquarists is because of their unique personalities and high intelligence. Oscars have been known to seek out friendly hands placed in their tanks, brushing themselves against them in much the same way that a dog approaches his owner to be petted. Some even claim that oscars can differentiate between their keepers and other people. They can be surprisingly interactive pets—an unexpected quality in an aquarium fish.
Intelligence
Whereas other tropical fish flit throughout an aquarium seemingly without purpose, oscars move slowly, with great deliberation, exploring their tank—and sometimes rearranging the decor to suit their needs. They are more aware of their keepers than most other fish and are among the very few fish that seem able to respond to human affection. In fact, your oscar may allow you to pet it if you gradually allow it to become used to your hands.
Dedicated keepers can even train their oscars to perform simple tricks such as ringing a bell to obtain food or swimming through a submerged hoop. Training your oscar in this manner involves little more than repetition, tasty food rewards, and lots of patience.
Aggression
Despite how interactive and friendly they can be with their keepers, oscars are not the most even-tempered of fish and have a tendency to bully smaller-sized tankmates. Like any fish, they eat other fish that are small enough for them to swallow but may also attempt to dominate fish that are too large for them to eat. However, oscars aren’t vicious fish that aim to destroy every fish they encounter, as some other species do. Once they exert their dominance over other fish, oscars usually leave them alone instead of killing them, content at having asserted dominance.
Oscars can live with other fish, provided the others are too large to be eaten or bullied and that you have room in your tank to comfortably accommodate multiple large fish.
| Text & Photos Copyright © 2007 TFH Publications, Inc. | Acknowledgments & Disclaimer |
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