Juvenile Oscar?

[verbal]

For a lot of people an oscar ends up being more of a pet than "just" a fish. So you might as well start off with good quality, even if it takes a little more money and effort.

Besides the often questionable quality at a petsmart, there also is the issue of what happens to the typical 2" oscar sold at a petsmart. I think Petsmart can potentially do a good job getting people started with keeping fish, but oscars are not at all a fish for beginners(unless you are starting off with a 75+ gallon tank). I think somewhere like Tropical Fish World would be a lot better place to buy a baby oscar. They also have the big boys, so people who buy there should know what they are getting into.

 

[rich_one]

For a lot of people an oscar ends up being more of a pet than "just" a fish. So you might as well start off with good quality, even if it takes a little more money and effort.

Besides the often questionable quality at a petsmart, there also is the issue of what happens to the typical 2" oscar sold at a petsmart. I think Petsmart can potentially do a good job getting people started with keeping fish, but oscars are not at all a fish for beginners(unless you are starting off with a 75+ gallon tank). I think somewhere like Tropical Fish World would be a lot better place to buy a baby oscar. They also have the big boys, so people who buy there should know what they are getting into.

I understand, and I do know what I am getting into in general. So while I guess you can say I am "new" to Oscars (had one 20 years ago, but that was the dark ages, before all of the info you get today on fish), I am not a "beginner" in fish keeping. The Oscar, assuming I get it, will be going into a 125 gallon. My question is based on the quality, but not necessarily about "Petsmart" oscars... more to the difference between wilds and tank raised, and what I perceive, at least, to be more vibrant coloring in the tank raised. I'm not concerned with the price, so this is not about the money or the effort. I am just trying to understand if the implication is that basically, tank raised oscars are inherently death and disease prone.

That is the gist of what I am trying to understand here.

-Rich

 

[verbal]

I understand, and I do know what I am getting into in general. So while I guess you can say I am "new" to Oscars (had one 20 years ago, but that was the dark ages, before all of the info you get today on fish), I am not a "beginner" in fish keeping.

-Rich

I didn't mean to imply that you were not up for housing and caring for the Oscar properly. I was just illustrating the fate of the typical petsmart Oscar.

I can't really add much to the wild vs. domestic trade-offs.

 

[rich_one]

I didn't mean to imply that you were not up for housing and caring for the Oscar properly. I was just illustrating the fate of the typical petsmart Oscar.

I can't really add much to the wild vs. domestic trade-offs.

Oh... got it. My bad for misreading your point!

Yeah... just trying to understand, at the end of the day, is it possible to get high quality, tank-bred and raised Oscars, or are wilds the only way to get high quality Oscars, at the end of the day.

-Rich