Hello, I bought a group of super red blood parrots from a local fish hobbyist a while back. All the parrots were very red in his tank. While a few months later, most of parrots become orange or even pale in color. I have tried high quality parrot fish food, increase water temperature to 84, weekly water change etc, but nothing really helped improve the color . Water parameters are fine and pH is around 8 from our well water. Does anyone have tips or tricks to enhance the blood parrot color to blood red? Any help would be very appreciated! Thanks
Blood parrot color
- Thread starter zmkm
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Floating cover, hiding spots/caves, deep shadows with lighting helps. Parrots are weird. They change color based on hormone, hierarchy, mood, temps or whatever. The parrot in my avatar is Boss, who was neon blood red for over 3 years. Then he abruptly changed to orange/pink with red splotches for several weeks. He now pops in and out between blood red and splotchy pinkish orange. Sometimes he has a white beard that goes away after 3 days.
My experience has been female parrots will go pale before laying eggs then change back after a week. One of my other parrots Kong would go creamsicle when laying eggs then back to orange!
Can you replicate the tank you bought them from with substrate/background?
You can try this too: I do a mix of blackworm pellets, spirulina pellets, Hikari gold and these. Also freeze dried blackworms soaked. 1mm-3mm works best. If you have a big mouthed parrot you can go up in size. I have one that can eat 4-6mm with no problem.
My experience has been female parrots will go pale before laying eggs then change back after a week. One of my other parrots Kong would go creamsicle when laying eggs then back to orange!
Can you replicate the tank you bought them from with substrate/background?
You can try this too: I do a mix of blackworm pellets, spirulina pellets, Hikari gold and these. Also freeze dried blackworms soaked. 1mm-3mm works best. If you have a big mouthed parrot you can go up in size. I have one that can eat 4-6mm with no problem.
Have about 15 parrots in a 135 gallon tank with 1x fx2, 3x aquaclear 110 and 4x sponger filters, water temp is 80-81, a few pieces of big drift wood as decoration. Not really a lot of hiding space though. I thought parrots don’t need a lot of space to hide. Thanks
Thanks very much FINWIN! This is very helpful, the Hikari blood red parrot + is the only food I am feeding them now, because a lot of my friends told me it’s a good food for parrots to turn red color, but I haven’t seen a big impact so far. I gave them some frozen blood worm once a while as treat but mainly pellet daily. I do have a couple giant kingkon which have big closed mouth which grabbed a lot of food every time, but they are all males and they are always pale in color. The normal parrots change color all the time but a lot of them stay in pale for a few weeks now. Not sure what happened. Yes, I do see some females trying to lay eggs with the big males and turn pale completely but didn’t change back after they are done. I am trying to overstock a bit since in Asian countries blood parrots are kept in large groups and they never be shy. Not sure if that’s the right thing to do though. Thanks again for your help!
All cichlids need plenty of hiding spots to feel comfortable. They are less stressed knowing that they have somewhere to go if scared.
That many territorial fish is also bound to cause fighting, which will further stress out the parrots.
Z
zmkm
don't go by what i call 'lobster tanks' with mobs of fish just floating motionless in a glass box. I guarantee if you put some hides in or sections of tall plants along the back wall the parrots will gravitate to it! They LOVE caves and hides. Also parrots get pretty big, adults can range from 6-10" and mammons/kkp a foot. That 135 is gonna be quickly maxed bioload wise (actually overloaded) and parrots get territorial over time. You're definitely going to have to thin the herd as they grow. Not sure what your w/c schedule is but with that many parrots you're talking twice a week, at least 50% each time. Here's a pic of one of my parrots Tango next to a quarter. He'll be 3 this summer. Now imagine 15 of these in a 135 down the road! It can't work...
I actually came here bc I googled why my BP changed color. I have a 1000g cichlid pond and 2 of my BPs are currently scouting flat rocks for the *perfect* one. One collects rocks and pebbles and spits them away, while the other patrols above, kicking out any big fish that come in the area. Which has been quite interesting to watch bc the patrol BP has fought and locked jaws with both my tank alphas- a full grown Red Devil and full grown Flowerhorn. The RD and FH both retreated after locking jaws which is super weird bc I was always under the impression that their deformed “O” mouth put them at a disadvantage when fighting. I don’t know but patrol BP is hyper aggressive and no one wants to fight him. I’m hoping somehow another male fertilizes the eggs and I get a cool cross but I don’t think so bc of how the two BPs are so clearly doing this as a team.
Anyway what led me here was I noticed today that one of the BPs turned yellow and I was like wtf because they are the same color red as the Red Devil. It’s one of the two attempting to breed so i’m confident that’s why she’s pale yellow. Thanks
Anyway what led me here was I noticed today that one of the BPs turned yellow and I was like wtf because they are the same color red as the Red Devil. It’s one of the two attempting to breed so i’m confident that’s why she’s pale yellow. Thanks
I actually came here bc I googled why my BP changed color. I have a 1000g cichlid pond and 2 of my BPs are currently scouting flat rocks for the *perfect* one. One collects rocks and pebbles and spits them away, while the other patrols above, kicking out any big fish that come in the area. Which has been quite interesting to watch bc the patrol BP has fought and locked jaws with both my tank alphas- a full grown Red Devil and full grown Flowerhorn. The RD and FH both retreated after locking jaws which is super weird bc I was always under the impression that their deformed “O” mouth put them at a disadvantage when fighting. I don’t know but patrol BP is hyper aggressive and no one wants to fight him. I’m hoping somehow another male fertilizes the eggs and I get a cool cross but I don’t think so bc of how the two BPs are so clearly doing this as a team.
Anyway what led me here was I noticed today that one of the BPs turned yellow and I was like wtf because they are the same color red as the Red Devil. It’s one of the two attempting to breed so i’m confident that’s why she’s pale yellow. Thanks
yup, parrots will change color based on mood, temp, hormones, or just whatever. The females tend to go pale or change color before laying eggs. Can last for days. Then they change back like nothing happened. One of my parrots Kong will go completely piebald then change back to orange!!
I always smile when people repeat the google information about whether parrots can bite or whatever. Short answer is yes, they can. They don't need teeth to liplock. But they seem to have hard lips that pinch. Whenever my parrots lock up the other fish ends up with a chewed/white mouth. I've had 4 parrots, three currently. My pink parrot Patch had a lot of midas in her and a mouthful of legit teeth to match. She shredded the face of my parrot Kong.
My current parrots: Boss, no teeth but is a lip ripper. He grips by the mouth and yanks.
Tango, a couple of teeth but isn't aggressive unless it's another parrot. Teeth too small for damage and he isn't a biter much.
Kong, mentioned above has one fang tooth up top she stabs with like a hole punch. Also a good lip locker.
All of them will ram fish in the side if fighting, that's a common parrot maneuver. And if they have a fixed mouth it doesn't prevent them from locking up.