Thanks for the compliments guys - its nice to have my hard work appreciated. That is what I love about this forum - people are so nice
Vbaby - The diet is simple. I feed a staple of Hikari Cichlid Gold floating pellets and add in a few cheaper pellets for variety. The fish were initially fed 3 times a day with nothing on weekends. They are about 8 months old now and are down to 2 times per day with no food on weekends. I occasionally supplement with live fish.
But... food is not the main ingredient to their color. My Oscars are all imported from Singapore where the best Reds are bred. They are pampered in a huge aquarium where I maintain the Ph and hardness at optimum levels and keep the nitrates very low. Water changes are stress free because all the water is pre-conditioned to match the aquarium before it goes in.
Finally I cheated a little - carefully arranged tank lighting brings out their best color. I use a mix of Power-glo tubes at the front of the tank (to bring out the red) and daylight tubes at the back. The front lights are directly over front of the tank to maximize the illumination of the side of the fish.
