Parrot fish and substrates

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Al KW Tan

Polypterus
MFK Member
Jan 21, 2019
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My parrot seems to move all the substrates right to the bottom. Clearing almost half the tank, and make mounds elsewhere. Does she prefer a bare bottom tank?
 
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She' d even move the vase out of place making sounds that concerns me when it rubbed the bottom of the tank. I'd need to constantly move the vase back in place
Should I just remove the substrates?
 
Ok. It's their tank. We only think it's ours. ? Lol
Agree
Cichlids are very sentient compared to some other fish families, and respond to complex instinctual cues.
To the dismay of many cichlid keepers, they find this out too late.
After buying $200 of plants, and aqauscaping a tank to the 9s, only to find the cichlids have uprooted and destroyed the plants overnight.
Or having an oscar attack a heater at night smashing it, and committing suicide in the process.
Or.. buying an expensive golden fleece fish, that an aquarium advice site said would be OK with one cichlid or another, put in a too small tank and finding it eviscerated a week later.
It matters not what you or I think is right, it only matters what the instinct of the cichlid tells it to do.
 
From my observations, I noticed a peculiar pattern on their substrates placements.
IMG_20220605_185650_edit_40145798193873.jpgstones

IMG_20220605_184556_edit_39764898962681.jpgsand

IMG_20220605_184544_edit_40056805520449.jpgcolored pebbles

Curious. Anyone else noticed such behaviour in your tanks? ?
 
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My parrots are funny the way they 'decorate'. Kong likes a 'half and half' tank where one side is bare and wide open and the other half is full with plants. Tango takes the tallest plants and makes a partition wall on one side where he sleeps. Behind the partition is open and on the other side are plants. Boss doesn't like red plants. I put them near his hide four times and he pulled them up four times. All of them will leave bare areas of glass, Tango does it the most. I discovered Kong likes purple plants because that's the color she always puts near her hutch.
 
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