Interesting Parrotfish Observation

[Scoot]

I have a princess parrotfish, who's slowly converting all my live rock to sand, but otherwise is doing quite well. He's a little more than half grown.

I'd read that they will sleep in a "mucous cocoon", but hadn't seen mine do it until this morning.

It had a bubble-like cocoon around it, with some sand stuck in it. When it broke it looked like a spider web or cobb web had grown around the rocks it had dug under to sleep.

I'm assuming this is a sign of good health, also.

I didn't have time to get a photo (was on the way out the door), but it was very cool to see.

Here'a pic from another site for those who are curious:
http://gallery.future-i.com/diving/pic:egypt05-mucous/

 

[austinsdad]

Yeah that's neat. I had a Scott's wrasse that did that. Fish do that in order to find refuge while resting/sleeping and keeping the night time predators away. The bubble keeps the smell of the resting fish from being detected by the predators while sleeping.

 

[roka64]

Yup, I have seen them in night SCUBA dives, they use it as protection. On a side note, when I was on a dive, during the day, you can actually hear them crunchin on the coral.
I would be interested in knowing what happens to the mucos, in the morning.

 

[austinsdad]

Floats away.

I fed my tank after my warsse bedded down. Well, he broke right thru it ate, and went back to bed and made another mucos shell.

 

[roka64]

Cool!

 

[abnmojo]

I had a common cleaner wrasse that refused to sleep in the sand bed and did the same thing in the LR. The first time I saw it, I thought it was dead myself. I hear they will eat the mucus and recycle it.... yum.

My wife saw parrots in the Carribean years ago and has bugged me since then to get one for the big tank. I told her no problem as long as I can get new LR every few months....... that stopped her, for the most part. Most of my LR is that expensive Marshal island stuff and the price has shot up a lot over the past few years.

 

[EELectric]

How do they make the bubble of mucus?

 

[Scoot]

I think I read that they secrete it from their skin... wierd.

On another parrotfish topic, I finally have gotten mine to eat from the plaster feeding blocks. He's demolished about half of a big one in 4 hours. He also eats mysis like I eat popcorn chicken, and goes through a 3/4" frozen block so fast I'm worried the other inhabitants aren't getting enough to eat.

It strange having such a good eater in the tank. He's eating as much as all the other fish do combined.

 

[Scoot]

He got up before I could catch his cocoon this morning, but here's a picture.

He does tend to move a lot of sand around, I've had to make sure all my LR is stacked very well and can't tip.

I love how their beak makes them look "happy" all the time

 

[austinsdad]

Cool looking fish!

 

[roka64]

It's a beaut!!!!

 

[Scoot]

An interesting thing, his color changes depending on if its been out and about or hiding - he can go from almost a solid brown, to the bright colors in the pic above in a few minute's time. The brownish bandings seem to move around on his body. Not sure if that's a sign of a problem or not... these guys aren't very common, and there isn't much info on them.

Update - he's taken to eating flakes now and pretty much all the frozen stuff I use (brine, sprirulina enriched brine, mysis, etc). Even the Formula 1 from Ocean Nutrition, the orange gel-type stuff, which none of the other fish will touch.

I have to feed at both ends of the tank now, cause when he's eats, he eats fast, and it tends to scare the other fish a little, especially the clowns. He's not agressive towards them, I think just his size and quick movements when he's feasting intimidates the others. So, I get him started at one end, then feed the rest at the other.

Him and my yellow tang will get in tug of wars with a frozen block of food. The tang tries to be dominant over him, even though the tang is a lot smaller, but the parrotfish just ignores him.

The parrotfish is getting friendlier too, when he sees me at the tank he's coming clear up to the surface, anticipating food.

Even with all the warnings I've found about parrotfish, even the smaller princess variety, I think if I can keep enough LR around with corraline on it, this one will make a great pet and will be quite happy.

 

[mchief]

what is his approximate rate of LR consumption?

 

[Scoot]

Right now he's just scraping off the surface, leaving pure-white patches underneath. I've got one big rock (well, big for my tank), about 13 pounds. He's cleaned probably 1/4 of the surface of that rock down to bare. It was covered with diatoms, purple corraline, and green corraline.

 

[mchief]

i wonder how much live rock you'd need so that the rate of corraline growth equalled his consumption? in other words, so there would be only bare batches here and there but for the most part the tank was still purple and green

a very cool fish that i contemplated getting at one time but was scared off due to his feeding requirements

 

[Scoot]

I'm trying to get him acclimated to eating other things - its working well so far, and the plaster feeding blocks (the kind that are sold for when you go on a week long vacation) are his favorite now, he's really backed off grazing on the rocks.

I think I'd need quite a bit more rock if that's all that was going to sustain him.

He's still picking at it some, but not as much. He still sprays sand out his bottom when he "goes." That's quite a sight to see too


After I have him a while, I'll post how the coralline re-growth is going, compared to his eating.


Update - the parrotfish loves algae wafers, too.

 

[abnmojo]

That is the fish my wife wants. She saw them on a cruise ship trip once. I have personally heard and seen them when I was diving at club GITMO in cuba..... long story, but I was not a guest, I was a member of management! BTW they love it when you smash a snail and wave the guts into the water, that brings them right up to you, just watch your fingers!

THEY GET BIG......

you may need a bigger tank bro.

 

[Scoot]

I've mostly weaned him off the LR nibbling, with algae wafers. Going to try some other kinds of algae wafers to give him some variety.

abnmojo - this variety is only supposed to reach a foot or so. I'm building a new home, and planning at least a 150g built-in tank somewhere in the house, so space might no be an issue down the road.