When i bought my O's they were very colorful fish (tiger oscars) but as they grow i noticed they are loosing the bright red pattern that we all love. theres barley any red left on them. i do keep up with water changes and my water stats are perfect, i feed only the best foods like hikari gold pellets, freeze dried blood worms, frozen krill, crikets and ghost shrimp ocasionally i'll throw in red minowes. has this ever happen to anyone?

Yes, i've seen quite a lot of oscars transform drasticly over time.
My red was very vibrant and shiny, but turned into a bronze colour.
When waterparameters are fine, the changing colour is normal.

This is how my red changed in time.
This is him at LFS:



at 6 months:



At one year:



There's no way of telling what a oscar will look like when you look at the baby.
Colour and pattern can change completely.

This can be normal. Oscars do change colour as they get older. I have seen reds become orangey, Albinos become red albinos and other subtle colour changes. Its perfectly normal and just one of those things

Just look around youtube, you will rarely find a large oscar as colourful as the baby ones

hey thanks for th replies, i did some more research and i found a thread on a forum thats pretty intresting check it out.
www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.ph...31f19f585790b343c134

my tiger has lost a little colour. He was BRIGHT orange im pretty sure he will get it back tho