Blood Parrotts

I bought a baby blood parrott about 4 months ago and then a second (not as young) before I knew that their mouths and other parts can be problematic for them. I am trying to give them the best life I can even with their hybrid difficulties. Last night I came home and walked towards the tank and the larger of the two was acting quite strange. The longer I watched the stranger I felt it's behaviour was. It acted as if it were scared of me and darted about the tank it went tail first up the castle towards the top of the tank. Then it was making large circles around the tank and then diving in to the gravel almost digging a hole behind a cave. After hitting the gravel it would dart toward a fish Any fish closeby and bite them and then circle around again and crash into the gravel (head first) again and so on. Haning never seen it act this way I was quite intrigued. I can only think that thid is some sort of spawning behaviour or something? Could this be true? Also when I bought the baby one it was grey and the man told me it would go through a series of colour changing before becoming red/orange if I fed it the colour enhancing food and bloodworms. He said it was possible for the fish to turn blue or purple or green rather than red but that was rare. I have heard since that they are dyed pretty colours!?! Mine are still yellow but their gills are peachy-pink, and the large one has some black markings around the edge of his fins. What is indeed the the truth? :?

 

The truth is that the parrot is dyed. There are no greens or purples or other exotic colors. It sounds like you bought one that wasn't dyed. Usually a parrot will start out grey and turn into red or orange. They are very agressive as they get older and require a big tank. If kept in a small tank they can become confused and easily startled by people that are approaching the tank. For a parrot and other fish, I wouldn't stray with anything less than 55 gallons. What type of fish is your parrot with? Don't be fooled by the parrots small mouth, they will kill other fishes once they develop and grow larger.

Give us tanks size , water parameters and other fishes in the tank.
Once you do that we can get a better idea!

Hooben

 

I have a 65G (long if that matters). Last water test was 2 days ago. Ammonia=0, Nitrite=0, PH=7.4, GH=232ppm. GH is a little high but is steady, as are the other 3. The tankmates are pretty much all semi-agressive community fish. The 2 parrotts (1 small-med. 1 med.-lg), 3 Angels, 3 gouramis (meaner than others I've had!), 1 Rainbow Shark, and 5 barbs. I'm scared of pleco's and the mean chineses algea eater that got big, so I brought them to my L.F.S. I have only one Ottocinclus but will get four more soon. I do have an algea issue going on in the tank and have been turning the lights off as often as I can stand to. I think I have every kind of algea there is!?! Could that be part of the problem? I have live plants too. At least my parrotts "Purple" (the baby) and"Peaches" (the larger one - a little smaller than the size of my palm) are not dyed!!! :roll: Thank-you for the Help! I'll check in soon! :y_the_best:

 

Hello? Is anybody out there? Please help! any info would be appreciated. The big parrott has not acted that way since the other night, but if it was breeding behaviour I would like to be aware of it. As far as the colour goes my L.F.S. told me to buy Tetra's COLORBITS Tropical Granules to feed them along with the bloodworms and they love the COLORBITS thank goodness because I am spending around $50. a month on food (frozen bloodworms :shock: $10-15 a pkg) so that figure should be decreasing now [-o< !!! They have been eating the new food for over 2 weeks and their colour has not changed much. I looked at the ones in the store and they were much smaller than mine yet they had a rainbow of colours within each fish and dots and pretty markings!!! Mine never looked like that!!! Is there better food or anything else I can do to brighten them up? Could it be all lighting? My hood has two bulbs in it one was $30 and the other was under $10 (i think- it's been a while since I bought them). At the time I was spending $500 so cost was important, but if I get another more expensive bulb will my fish look better? On the old board someone mentioned that they don't buy their bulbs at the L.F.S because they are the same as some bulbs you can buy elsewhere? Are they as good? What will fit?

 

There are smaller very colorful parrots called Jellybean parrots that are dyed. These are the purple, pink, green etc. colors that he was talking about. I believe they are a mix of a blood parrot and a convict cichlid.

As to the colorbits food, I've never seen a color enhancing food actually change the color of the fish. In fact, IMO, I've never seen them do anything except be expensive!

Lighting however can change with age. If it was a while ago that you bought your lights it is possible that they've gotten dimmer. I bought a purplish colored bulb called PowerGlo at the lfs that brought out a lot of colors in my fish, but it didn't make them seem different colors at all. Just accentuated what was already there. I know lots of people go to wal mart and buy Cool White tubes because they're much cheaper, I wish I'd done this as my one 18 inch tube cost $21 at the lfs.

I'm sorry, I don't know about parrot behavior as I've never kept them. Hope I've been some help!

 

I'm not quite comfortable with the angels and guarami in the same tank. 65 gallons sounds kinda small. The parrots I have do exibit very strange behavior at times. They are about 6 inches long now and chase each other around with their gills flared. They do dig in the gravel often. They also were very afraid of people approaching when they were young. Now they are aggressive enough to bite my hand continuously when I am doing water changes. The only fishes I have ever kept them with are severums and tiger barbs. They will not let plecos into the tank without attacking. Be careful. The behavior does sound about right.
Lights will not add any colors not already seen in your fish. Extra expense for lighting would only benefit live plants. The same is true for food. The only thing that is healthy is to feed them a healthy mix of different foods.
Good luck.

 

Thanks Tina and Hooben!!! Would I be O.K. if Got another tank say 75-100g and did traditional cichlids with the parrotts and left the angels and the gourami's together? That's neat that they nibble at you when you are in the tank!!! They are interresting fish for sure!!! So far the angels are giving the parrotts a run for theis money. Oddly enough I have a power struggle going on and the top three to date are: Nemo (the albino angel), O.P. ( the opaline gourami- has killed in the past), and Peaches (the larger of the 2 parrotts)! I think it's strange that they are soo close since they a 3 entirely different fish! Anyways thank-you both for your replies! :y_the_best:

 

HI ceveretts,
That shopuld be gr8, I would rather move the parrots to the other 80-100 G tank. The best suited ones for the parrots are severums as some one pointed out.

I had my 100G tank with 4 Severums ( 2 8" golden and 2 5" Green ) with 2 7" Blood red parrots. I found the parrots always chasing my severums. But severums did respond them back. Also i had a parrot fry recently and i found them defending the fry untill i took them out of the tank with the fry to a new 65G tank

 

Thank-you raghu_gg. I am not that familliar with Severums. Are they Cichlids? Are they colorful? Better yet anyone got some pics? I am new to Cichlids. I had a pair of South American cichlids once, and the male was gorgeous!!! I wish I knew what it was called! The body was brown with a jagged dorsal fin that looked like a flame with orange and red and yellow and many other colours in it and it's lips were bluey-purple. Absolutely gorgeous! He ended up eating his mate and then he died. :cry: ( I had trouble with the heater! :cry I am going to see if I can find some pics of Severums online.

 

I have a few pictures, But i am not sure how to post them here.
These are South american Cichlids.

You can also have a look at those in
www.aquahobby.com/gallery/gseverumn.html

and at

www.cichliddepot.com/american/severum.html

They look gorgeous. especially the golden ones Much better than the ones in these postings.

They are highly well behaved ones. Especially the ones that i have have. I have trained them to take in food from my hand. And will approch me when i go near the aquarium.

These are tough ones which can accept harsh conditions of water quality. But will panic easily until it gets accustomed to the environment[/img]