Oscar, Continued...

[rich_one]

So, this sort of died a bit in the Marketplace thread. But since this is now more an information thing, than a sales kinda thing, I figured I'd restart it here. In a nutshell:

The general consensus is that wild oscars tend to be of far superior quality to tank-bred oscars. I get that. My question is, can high quality, tank-bred oscars be had? Or would the pursuit of such a thing be too difficult? It seems not many people are breeding them... at least from what I can tell. Is it because they are that difficult to get quality fry from in captivity? Seems like most people basically just like to pursue the wild ones. Most people that are real oscar lovers, anyway.

I'm really curious about this because this seems to be one of the only fish I am aware of, where the wild vs. captive bred is skewed this far towards the wilds, for quality reasons.

-Rich

 

[dogofwar]

I wasn't aware of any particular quality issues with captive-bred oscar. Although there are lots of issues with how well people keep oscars (captive-bed or otherwise)...

It all depends on how you define "quality"...

Wild oscars are basically brown and green fish. And actual wild fish sometimes have internal parasites and issues acclimating to life in a glass box.

Oscars have been selectively bred (in Asian and Florida mostly) for the past 50+ years to have all of the colors of the rainbow. Even to have long fins.

Members of the club have some amazing, healthy "fancy" oscars..and some amazing, healthy wild ones.

The most common oscar malady is hole in the head, usually caused by dirty water and/or a diet insufficient in certain vitamins (most commonly the former). I'd assume that wild and captive oscars are equally susceptible.

Matt

 

[rich_one]

Well, in hindsight, I think maybe the issue was with oscars coming from a place like Petsmart. But I guess what I'm trying to figure is, is there another way to get captive bred oscars? nearly every place I see on the web... as far as forums, anyway... are all about wilds. I kinda prefer captive breds, because I prefer the more orange coloring, and also, I at least thought they were more used to being in the glass box. But given the only way I know of to get captive breds these days is either by going to said Petsmart, or asking on the forums. The forum route keeps pointing back to wilds. Doesn't seem like many people actually breed these guys, as far as I can tell so far, anyway.

Anyway, it is just a curious dynamic with this specific fish that I have run into for the first time, and am just trying to make sure I understand it correctly. I don't think I'm going to get any wild oscars, but I don't want to get any poor quality captive bred ones either.

-Rich

 

[creepyoldguy]

All w/c Sa/Ca fish are more sought after than captive bred. This mainly being due to the hybridization that occurs so frequently and the buyer feels they have a more quality fish with a w/c.

Dogofwar said it right when he said about oscars being line bred for years.

As far as quality goes, I believe you can find a very nice oscar from Petsmart/Petco. I purchased the smallest sized oscar I could find at the end July of '10 at the size of just bigger than a quarter. By the time I got rid of it (which I believe was in mid December) it had grown to about 7" and was very beautiful. I kept it in a 150g tank with plenty of water changes and it was very well fed.

The sooner you get a juvi fish out of a bad quality water, the better. Most growth patterns are set at a young age. All breeding pairs have deformed offspring that normally get eaten or culled by the time the fish is for sale in the store, so this will allow for the stronger of the fry to be available for purchase. As said earlier, the deformities occur more in bad diet and water conditions, which is why I believe you can still get and raise quality oscars from chain stores.


As far as breeding oscars? They take a while longer than other Sa cichlids to reach maturity. Their size is also a factor. How many ppl have tanks to house a pair? To most people, a 55g tank is a large aquarium and is not suitable for one, let alone a pair.