Parrot fish Hybrids..

[Miles]

I know there has been alot of speculation of the infamous 'Parrot Fish'.. Where did it come from? What was crossed? Who knows! I have heard so many 'hypothesis' of what cross this fish actually is. I sure would like some factual information on this :)

This is what I do know..

Males are sterile.. Am I wrong? Has anyone ever fertilized a pure parrot fish?

Females can produce fertile eggs...

How do I know? I have bred a pink convict with a parrot fish on multiple occasions ;) The babies turned out like normal convicts with slightly odd-shaped bodies.

Here is what is interesting.. I have the parrot in with a group of cichlids right now, including the pink convict. However, she is definately trying to spawn with the Midas cichlid. Perhaps I could go ahead and try to create a king kong parrot? Just to see.. I am not a huge fan of hybridization, but I am always curious if I could do it and what the fry would look like. Ugh. Of the pink convict/parrot batch, I only kept 2 free to grow out, which were the largest of the group.

Heres a pic of the big male offspring from the pink convict/parrot cross..

[armac]

There are fertile males, but there are many infertile ones also

[Vitaliy]

That is a not bad looking cross you got there, I do not mind other hybrids as much as I do Parrots and King Kongs... think they are super ugly.

[cichlid_breath]

i to have been able to breed parrots but it was not with another parrot it was with a convict......and i heard somewhere whether its true or not idk that midas parrots they were breed with midas cichlids and red devils and to make the blood red it was convicts and red devils once again sum1 told me this but idk whether or not it to be true if i am wrong please correct me

[dark_aLLeY]

are there really no means to fertilise the eggs laid by parrot fish ?

[Nate_N_Nicole]

Looks different

[Ken]

Parrots, as stated previously, are not always sterile, which happens a lot with hybridization. They were bred from the midas cichlid and possibly convicts, salvini, texas. More than likely they have the genes of all these and many more. Regardless, some are pretty and some are ugly. I do not know where I stand regarding these fish, but they are interesting.

[Miles]

I would lean more towards Convicts and Severums, than Salvini or Texas.. You would think they would get some of that 'speckeling' in their body. I have a parrot fish that has the exact same markings as a convict.

[sandtiger]

I have heard a lot of info about what is in a blood parrot. Fish such as convicts, red devils, midas and severum.

I myself don't much care for hybrids because they make it harder to indetify and find true specimens of the various species. Africans are a pain in my butt. Bloodparrots are ok because there is nothing I can confuse them with.:)

[iheartfishies]

I saw a tank of Red Parrots, while on vacation, and one Red Devil :hearts: ...

OR WAS IT...

From the front it looked Just like a Red Devil....
then as it turned around...
IT HAD A PARROT BODY...
I was Horrified!
I wasn't expecting that AT ALL.
It was disgusting.

[Miles]

King Kong Parrots!! Yes, they are disgusting.

[Ash]

I always wondered about Parrots if they are able to have babies I have heard alot about them and how they cant have fertile eggs, but I went to this fish place the little while back and They had a Parrot in this tank and it said not for sale, so I was wondering why, I looked into the tank to see a bunch of babies... I was very confused as to why it had babies when I heard they could only lay infertile eggs...?

[Miles]

If people would take the time to read the original post..

Females are fertile, Males are not.(Typically)

Females will cross-breed with anything that will fertilize the eggs.

[Dragon Keeper]

Hi..................
How about those King Kong Parrot with hugh 'hump' on the fore head ?
Anyone successfully breeding it ? Nice to have a pic of locally breed KK parrot with hump.......anyone have can share.

[Miles]

I think the King Kong parrots that are becoming more widely spread, are model of the flowerhorn. They will breed alot more willingly with other large cichlids, such as Midas/Red Devil. The original parrots would not do this, nor grow as large. It was rumored that the original parrot fish was crossed genetically in a labratory, with a petri dish. Perhaps that is why the original parrots are not sterile (Or the scientist who created them, INTENDED on them to be sterile, so he could make the money off them).. BUT, Then I believe the Taiwan ornamental fish people noticed they could make a very similiar parrot fish out of a strain of flowerhorns, midas, devils, and other large, bright orange cichlids.

Alot of people are attempting to breed them, more often in Asia, however.. I recently adopted out my female Parrot fish which would cross with a pink convict. The new owner (BGG) is going to try to cross it would a Midas, so hopefully MFK will soon have some documentation on this! :)

Miles

[Rikesh]

Hello there... Thank you for all your posts!
Has anyone tried hand stripping parrots? I was thinking that it would be a nice and quick way to test cross breeding results.