# I need you guy's help!



## citers (Mar 26, 2010)

So i bought two oscars about 4 months ago and they were both about 2 inches long. Phantom the red oscar is now 5 inches and ghost the albino is still the same. I got another one in between and he is growing the same as phantom so i was wondering could it be that ghost is a different gender or do albinos grow slower or what?


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Both could be true. Males do tend to get a bit bigger. There is a reason we have pigment in our eyes and the only successful natural albinos are in caves. Most albinos are not entirely blind, but impaired vision is common. When albinos are raised with normal-colored fish they often get out-competed for food since it takes them longer to see and find it. I don't know what you can do about it short of dividing the tank or hand-feeding the pale one.


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## citers (Mar 26, 2010)

emc7 said:


> Both could be true. Males do tend to get a bit bigger. There is a reason we have pigment in our eyes and the only successful natural albinos are in caves. Most albinos are not entirely blind, but impaired vision is common. When albinos are raised with normal-colored fish they often get out-competed for food since it takes them longer to see and find it. I don't know what you can do about it short of dividing the tank or hand-feeding the pale one.


Yeah i already moved her away from the big ones. Do they sell male and females in the same tank as babies at walmart?


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## citers (Mar 26, 2010)

I guess i could try feeding them with the top light off and see if that helps.


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## Guest (Mar 28, 2010)

what emc said is very true. try hand feeding her/him. i;ve never had oscars so what am gonna say is based on my live bearer breeding days.....the most dominant fry/juvi will secreet growth preventive hormones. if thats is the case with growin oscars the best thing u could do i either move him/her out of the main tank and out grow him/her in a diff or, increase the number of water changes. i used to do 30% every 2 days and all my fry, the survivors would grow at the same rate.


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## DTetras2 (Jan 20, 2010)

I don't know about albino differences, and also i don't have oscars, but i've pulled up a bunch of info about them, but the gender differences could possibly explain the change in growth. How big is or are the tanks you put the fish in, because i have a friend who put a fish in a small tank and the fish just stopped growing when it was less than an inch so it could be something like that. it would also be a good idea to ask an oscar proffesional this question because it could also be many other different things so you could get a bunch of different answers. hope i could help.


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## citers (Mar 26, 2010)

Oh there in a 150 gallon and they are still only 6 inches max the albino is about 3 though. Im seeing that it isnt good to feed comets to oscars is this true?


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Well I'm not an oscar professional. I've read that nutritionally goldfish aren't all that good. An exclusive diet of goldfish will cause symptoms of dietary deficiency and make oscars more vulnerable to hole-in-the-head. Plus each feeder goldfish has a chance of giving your oscar a parasite or other disease, if you feed them regularly it becomes almost a certainty that your oscar will catch something. If you are determined to feed fish (and oscars do fine on pellets and frozen food), its better to breed your own guppies under conditions you control. They are carnivores, but you can feed them beefheart, bloodworms, blackworms, earthworm, even crickets.


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## DTetras2 (Jan 20, 2010)

Has the larger oscar been stealing the others food? Oscars have been known to compete with red eared sliders for food causing growth problems for the turtle. Young oscars obviously eat a lot less than turtles so IK wouldn't be surprised if the problem involved food competition. As for the comets, what emc said was completely correct- oscars are predominantly carnivorous but feeding comets, which contain very high levels of thiaminase, has been known to cause thiamin deficiencies. I would avoid feeding comets altogether.


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