My Oscar Still Hasn't Developed Any Color, Just Staying Grey/black

[Jackiee]

I've had my juvenile Oscar, he's about 4 inches long, for over a month now.

When I took him off some guy's hands, he had got into a fight with a juvenile jack dempsey and had nipped/torn fins and a couple minor body wounds.

He was beat up and was almost a solid grey color with traditional black oscar markings showing up ONLY when my larger fish came near him and he felt threatened... there was no orange or red coloration on him at all, except a tiny tiny spec of orange on each side of his body at the base of his pectoral fins. I thought this was just because he was beat up and stressed, not in the best condition, and that since I seen the tiniest bit of orange, maybe he would develop his color eventually.

It's been over a month and he still hasn't colored up at all.
His body condition is tons better, but still no orange or red like most oscars show.

Someone told me it was normal for juvenile oscars and that they don't color up until they get older, but I've seen oscars in the pet stores the same size as my guy, and they already have their orange markings.

Could it be that he's not actually a Tiger Oscar, the most popular type, but is instead a Common Oscar (aka Wildtype Oscar)?
I've tried to do some of my own research about it, but I didn't know how common the Wildtype Oscar really is..

In some of the pictures I just took, theres some more specs of orange along the sides of his body, but you can't see these in person by just looking at him. they only showed up when the flash hits him just right and catches the orange in the pictures.

Here's some pics of the little guy

 

[england]

If it is a wild oscar then Lucky you, but looking at it, looks a normal tiger, some wont have any red what so ever, some will have alot from juvi, one day it could change over night. Or could stay without alot of red,
As you say, looking at them you cant really make the red...same was with mine,flash picked out so much more

Then hitting around 6-7inches

 

[Jackiee]

Oh wow.. that's obviously a huge difference!
Maybe he will just take a while to color up.. i mean the few specs of orange that my camera DID pick up, weren't there when I first got him over a month ago when I took pictures of him.
So it could be possible that he's very very slowly acquiring the orange.. I didn't know it could take that long to get the orange/red,

Thanks for the pics

 

[mattlee]

im sure as the oscar matures its red will become more dominant. although a few will stay very black its really pot luck as to how they turn out im affraid. the colour difference on nellys old o's shows this very well. quite dull and dark as juvis but stunners as adults

my oscar (see sig below) when in a good mood can be black/grey/white with red all down his side. when stressed he goes almost white/pale grey and when angry almost all black. its almost like having a different fish some days.....

keep us posted on his growth

 

[godfreymatthews]

Yes its really huge difference, Sometimes it took more time to there original color I have also a fish who took so much time to have its real color. And yes it will become Orange. But it will took sometime. So don't worry about that.

 

[Jackiee]

Alright thanks everyone. He's in his own hospital tank right now and has been for a couple weeks and keeps looking better and better. I do 90% water changes every 2 days and add aquarium salt into his water, it's been helping his fins heal tremendously.

I feed him twice a day with Hikari brand cichlid pellets, frozen brine shrimp, and now I've started giving him a guppy or two every day.

I had some guppies given to me by a friend that were living in a community tank and breeding like crazy, he started feeding them to his Discus fish and saw improvements in their colors and size and he gave me a bunch of them to start feeding my Oscar and Jack Dempsey. I felt more comfortable feeding them these guppies rather than just some diseased sickly feeder fish from the LFS I wasn't going to take the chance of giving my lovelies some internal parasites from nasty feeder fish. but..
My Oscar gobbles these little guys up, just loves chasing them around the tank to catch them. I'm hoping he'll grow big and strong

He gets a little grumpy when I get the camera out,

curious little fellow

 

[Verminator89]

Oh its great to hear of s story with a happy ending. Heres to hoping her continues his good growth, he certainly has got some character. Charming lil fella!