Albino Red Oscar 7cm

Albino Red Oscar
 

The Albino Red Oscar is a true classic morph of the beloved Oscar cichlid. One of the world's most popular South American cichlids, the Oscar is often the first cichlids, aquarists own when exploring the world of South American cichlid keeping. Oscars win many aquarists over for their big size, unique colours, and most importantly of all, their amazing personality. Through the multiple years of keeping and breeding oscars, there are multiple colour variants that are now commonly available in the aquarium industry. One of the most common and oldest variants is the Albino Red which paints a totally different colour palette when compared to the common oscars, the albino reds sport a far more vibrant and fierier look with the cream white base colour and a solid layer of bright orange all through the body.

The most popular thing about the Oscar is their puppy dog-like personality which is often why they get the nickname ‘wet pet’ because they can become extremely personable to their owners displaying a wide range of fun and interesting behaviors. This characteristic behavior is still exactly the same as the Albino Red Oscar meaning that it has all the pros of a normal Oscar with the added advantage of being a very unique colour variation. Albino red Oscars however do get fairly sizeable not just in length but in height as well with an oval-like body. They are also fairly aggressive fish and need to be kept with selective tank mates due to their behavior.

However, the Albino Red Oscars are a great fish to keep in a species-only display aquarium to really highlight their unique look. Trying to find the males and females in this species is very difficult in comparison to other South American cichlids. There are no immediate distinguishing factors between males and female oscars and it is best to let them pair off naturally. However, because they are territorial fish it is difficult to house multiple oscars in an aquarium without it being very large. Naturally, the wild oscars are found in the amazon river of South America. 

Tank Recommendations for your Albino Red Oscar
The Albino Red Oscar is a big fish growing to around 30 cm long and is also considered to be messy fish. Because of this, it is best to keep them in a tank that is a minimum of only needs a tank around 380 liters. Though the internet may show recommendations for smaller tank volumes, in the long run, this can be detrimental to the fish as maintaining proper quality in smaller tanks with a full-grown Oscar can be very difficult. These size tanks will not only allow for a full-grown adult Albino Red Oscars but the possibility for other tank mates. The aquascape for an Oscar should be taken very lightly as these are big and often clumsy fish. They regularly scratch themselves and bump into materials which could cause unnecessary injury so it is best to keep them on a sand or gravel substrate with a few smooth river rocks and some driftwood to mark out territorial boundaries. Albino Red Oscars however with their amazing personalities may choose to redecorate their home to better suit them.  

Suitable Tank Buddies

Albino Red Oscars are big, boisterous fish which can be very territorial. Though an oscars behavior can range from slightly aggressive to highly aggressive caution should be taken when they are kept with other fish because the Oscars voracious personality and feeding response can mean they outcompete tank mates for food.

Usually Compatible

Large growing South American cichlids such as jaguar cichlids, red devil cichlids, Veija cichlids, and species of a similar sort can be housed with Oscars. 

Sometime Compatible

Geophagus, silver dollars, flag tail prochilodus, and other large growing fish species.

Rarely Compatible

Peaceful aquarium species and nano fish such as tetras or shrimp will become immediate food for Oscar.

Feeding your Albino Red Oscar

Oscar cichlids in general are by far one of the easiest fish to feed. They will eat any aquarium food given to them all the way from pellets to frozen foods. Their diet should contain good quality floating or sinking pellets with high protein content. This should be supplemented with frozen foods such as bloodworms. One thing to note is that they are messy eaters so feeding flakes might not be a good option. To increase the vibrancy of the red in these fish, feeding foods with high astaxanthin levels will really help, such foods include krill and red worms. Feeding should occur once a day and it is best to do so during the day.