Blueberry Oscars?

"noname" wrote in message
...
My husband came home with what our LFS called a Blueberry Oscar Friday.
It's
about an inch and a half long and such a pretty blue. After watching it
for
awhile I googled on it to see what I could find out. (it stays around the
top of
the tank near the air bubbles and acts like it's uncomfortable or
something)
What I've found is that this is an albino oscar that has either been put
in a
dye tank or injected with dye. I'm guessing that could be why it acts a
little
sickly...not much of an appetite, swims like it's off balance and keeps
charging
the sidewall.

Is this a common practice or is there a possibility they didn't know what
they
were on about when they called it a Blueberry Oscar? (if you look closely,
you
can see the same markings and spots that a lot of the albinos have, or the
red
ones for that matter) It sickens us to know anyone would do this just to
be able
to charge double the price for them. What I've read says they usually live
around 2-4 months with some lasting as long as 6. *If* they make it to a
year,
they are no longer blue. We're thinking about taking it back to the store
today
and telling them what we think of this practice and why we feel it's
wrong. I
doubt it'll do any good, and they will probably sell Frankensmurf (the
blueberry
oscar) to someone else.

Are there any other types of blue oscars that are naturally blue and would
do
well in a fresh water tank suited for the S.American (reds, tigers, ...)
Oscars?
Two of my kids favorite color is blue and they've been SO excited just
watching
this one. Kinda sucks that now we have to tell them how he got his color
and why
we're taking him back...will probably confuse them.

noname
--

It's OK to selectively breed fish for their color only, but not OK to
artificially color them? Flushing millions of undesirable babies down the
toilet, because the color isn't quite right to go to market is OK with you?
Isn't that how they eventually got red, tiger, red tiger, albino, and other
Oscars that we see now? I'm not being judgmental here, only asking your
opinion Noname. We are all forced at some point to draw the line on what is
OK, and what goes too far with fish.

--
JK Sinrod NY
Sinrod Stained Glass
www.sinrodstudios.com
Coney Island Memories
www.sinrodstudios.com/coneymemories