Parrot questions

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warhawk

warhawk

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Feb 26, 2015
137
37
31
Indiana
My wife and I enjoy the parrot cichlids, we got the first one because of the personality we saw in the store. The fish would follow your finger and kinda play with you. She has been telling me to set up a tank full of them so I was able to find another one from a local person.

Caption Jack was our first one we got about 3 years ago he has grown to about 5-6" long and about 2" wide.

Elizabeth Swan is out second one we have only had a few weeks, the person I got her from said she laid eggs one time in their tank so we assume its a girl. She is smaller only about 3"-4" long and 1"-1.5" wide. Judging my her size I would guess her age at about 1-1.5 years old.

Right now the fish are not in the same tank. I wanted to keep Elizabeth in a QT just in case she had any health issues, she looks find and so far no issues. I have noticed she is always moving the gravel around to make what I would call a nest. She pushes the gravel into what looks like small bowl and just sits there unless she comes out to grab food. Once she dug the gravel out from under the coconut shell and it fell into the nest so I moved it out and she started all over.

To me this sounds like she is looking to mate so thinking when I move them to the same tank there is a fair chance they will spawn. I have read that all parrot males are sterile but I have also read that is a myth. I have seen videos of people breeding their parrots so I'm thinking maybe some of the male parrots are sterile.

Now my questions
Is the behavior I'm seeing mean what I think it means?
Whats the odds my male is sterile? 50/50??


And I could be completely wrong on the sexes. They might bother be males or both be female or Jack might even be Jackie.
 
Cichlids dig all the time doesn't necessarily mean they are ready to breed. They do dig when they are getting ready to breed but digging isn't necessarily means they are nesting if that makes sense. I have heard male parrots are mostly sterile but not all of them are. I have seen hybrids where the male was a parrot.
 
Some cichlids dig to mark their territory. At least this is what I have observed from mine.
 
Well I put them together over the weekend and at first I was pretty hopeful, lots of dancing around and showing interest. But after about a few hours the smaller one (one I thought was the female) started to nip at the larger ones fins. The larger one keep getting chased around the tank. The larger one started hanging face down in the corner and I could tell very stressed. So I moved him back out to his old tank. It took a while but he perked back up and is just about to his old self now.

I would rather keep them separate than worry about losing a fish, my wife wasn't really happy with how he was acting.
 
That's just a cichlid thing. They may still be male and female. With my first pair of parrots I got one then another a few weeks later. The original (female) chased and bullied the new one relentlessly for a couple of days. I made sure there was not going to be any serious damage but left them. Things calmed down and instead of attacking the new one, she began displaying to him and he did the same back after a bit. I think they first bred maybe a week or two later. I find that even parrots of the same sex will co-exist fine once they sort out who is top dog. They can't really do each other much damage anyway.
 
Don't confuse things... Male parrots are sterile. There may be exceptions but in general male parrots are sterile.
 
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