Currently we import very pretty young Oscars from Brazil, which are offered under the name “Astronotus crassipinnis”. The species A. crassipinnis exists in Brazil, but there is no possibility to check if the species identification is correct. We suspect that the animals are bred ones.
The beautiful fish show the typical behaviour of all Astronotus children: they have a strong need to be with conspecifics. The conspicuous colouring of all young Oscars is in fact a camouflage. The animals form larger groups and swim so close together that they look like one big fish to a potential attacker.
The loss of the child’s pattern is indicated by the fact that the animals develop their typical eye spot on the tail root. From then on, the young Oscars begin to live rather individually (or in small groups). The eye spot is used to mislead attackers (who orient themselves by the eye of the victim when preying). Oscars from this size upwards prefer to eat small fish themselves, but in the aquarium they also take any other kind of strong food of carnivorous nature.
How these Oscars look like as adult fish, we do not know, therefore a safe scientific determination is not possible. However, it can be assumed with some certainty that this Astronotus species also grows to a length of about 25-30 cm.
For our customers: the animals have code 632302 (4-6 cm) and 632303 (5-7 cm) on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply the wholesale trade.
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
