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Wild caught Oscars in Australia


spoonta66

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I just got my hand on what seems to be a wild caught baby oscar. It has the same coloration and markings of just about every wild oscar picture i can find. I was just curious to know if they are rare in Australia or not and if it would be worth buying a dozen or so other oscars (red or tiger) to see if I can pair it up and mate it.

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What makes you think that your 2.5" oscar is a wildcaught specimen? As far as I know, when they are wildcaught, the "wildcaught" label is plastered all over them and the price is exhorbitant (Most of the money is due to freight from South America via a thrid party country).

I know some of the big importers have brought in Wildcaught Oscars (A.occelatus) before, but they were big fish and the price was exhorbitant for a drab brown fish with an ocelli spot on the tail pendecule.

"Tiger" and "Red" oscars are actually line bred variants of a very drab, plain looking fish in the wild. 90% of pics you see online are actually these linebred fishes which are bred by the millions in Asia. U'll hardly find a pic of the true "wild" A.occelatus online imo.

A lot of 2.5" red and tiger oscars coming in from Asia are very very brightly coloured for small fish. They look spectacular for about a month after purchase and then the colour starts to fade.... I attribute this to the "special" food (read, very likely testosterone laced food), these young fish are fed to colour them up before being exported. Often, the colour will come back again naturally in time as the fish matures.

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how did the oscar ever make it to the allowable import list? For gods sake they could reek havoc in any fresh water sysytem and from good information are in the North Queensland area. Yet we can not import a peaceful little lake Tanganyikan sandsifter.

Maybe we should revamp the whole import list getting rid of these big south american carnivours!!

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I know some of the big importers have brought in Wildcaught Oscars (A.occelatus) before, but they were big fish and the price was exhorbitant for a drab brown fish with an ocelli spot on the tail pendecule.

All I know is the fish is exactly as you describe (drab brown fish with an ocelli spot on the tail pendecule) except it is drab brown and slightly olive in color with the ocelli spot on the tail pendecule that is only slightly orange around its border. And from descriptions from friends in Texas who have caught them wild in S.America themselves I would say they are pretty close to what is caught in the wild.

My LFS was only able to obtain one fish on my request from about 1 year+ ago as the person who imported them only brought in 20 fish in total as it was a side order and not the main bulk of the import.

It looks good to me but who knows?

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how did the oscar ever make it to the allowable import list? For gods sake they could reek havoc in any fresh water sysytem and from good information are in the North Queensland area.

Yep, can go catch them in a local creek

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Similar, not quite though. Usually a more olive colour.

At the end of the day, your fish is more then likely just another run of the mill captive spawned oscar. Nobody in their right mind would trade a big ol' oscar for a wildcaught specimen. Like Kev has stated, the costs in importing a wild oscar are through the roof, thus their high price.

If you are happy with your fish that's all that matters.

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