Blood Parrot Cichlid acting wierd, please help!

[nickcmanning]

I know a lot of you are against this type of fish on here but I am sorry to admit that I happen to like them a lot. I have had my blood parrot for about 4 months now I'd say, maybe a little longer (I can't really remember). And for those of you who are against these fish for dieing purposes, I do not have one that was died, he has the coloration of a black convict right now and looks to soon be changing over to a more severum-esque color soon hopefully. He has been perfectly healthy and still looks perfectly healthy. His fins are great, he eats regularly. On tuesday of this past week, I did a 50% water change and a substrate cleaning with the vacuum hose that aqueon makes. Ever since then, my blood parrot has been EXTREMEMLY timid and hovers at either the bottom of the tank in the back corner or the top of the tank near the heater. While hovering in these spots, he is usually tilted to the side a bit. He also has a little faded mark on his left gill that I don't remember ever seeing. On top of all of this though, when I feed the tank, he eats and acts regularly. Once feeding is over, he goes back to being extremely timid. To make it even more odd, he freaks out if I even so much as walk in front of the tank as if he is scared of me. It's really odd and he's obviously never done this before and I'm worried he is dying. I have tried feeding him unshelled peas in case its swim bladder and I also went out and bout the PH Increase solution at a petsmart and plan to slowly raise the PH in efforts to get him back to normal (my PH has always been a bit low but until now it has not beena problem). If anyone has any insight on something else I could try, I'd love the input. I really enjoy this fish's personality and I don't want to see him pass on.

-Nick

 

[George9]

I love blood parrots!

What are your parameters?

This probably isn't it but Did you forget to add water conditioner maybe?

 

[nickcmanning]

My water is on the softer side, the alkalinity is low but I have zero knowledge on how to change that, and my PH has always been around 6.5 but I think it may have dropped a bit with the water change. Although I only have test strips at my disposal right now. I don't know how accurate those things are to the T. I have a 20 gallon tank with a bolivian ram, 5 harlequin rasboras, 3 red eye tetras and a bristlenose pleco. I have had no fish die since the tank has been running under these water parameters to date except for 2 ottocinclus algae eaters (which are finnicky just on their own).

 

[George9]

My water is on the softer side, the alkalinity is low but I have zero knowledge on how to change that, and my PH has always been around 6.5 but I think it may have dropped a bit with the water change. Although I only have test strips at my disposal right now. I don't know how accurate those things are to the T. I have a 20 gallon tank with a bolivian ram, 5 harlequin rasboras, 3 red eye tetras and a bristlenose pleco. I have had no fish die since the tank has been running under these water parameters to date except for 2 ottocinclus algae eaters (which are finnicky just on their own).

What are your ammonia and nitrite and nitrate readings? How long had the tank been set up? Was it properly cycled?
Sorry fir all the questions

 

[nickcmanning]

The ammonia and nitrate readings are both lower too so I think that is fine. The tank has been set up for almost 7 months now and yes it was properly cycled for a month with started fish.

 

[George9]

The ammonia and nitrate readings are both lower too so I think that is fine. The tank has been set up for almost 7 months now and yes it was properly cycled for a month with started fish.

What exactly is lower? Below .25 is not toxic to the fish. Any higher and it could be part of the problem.

 

[nickcmanning]

The nitrate levels are below 25..I just checked again

 

[George9]

The nitrate levels are below 25..I just checked again

What about the ammonia?

Sorry, when I said below .25 is not toxic, I was referring to ammonia. Should have been more clear

 

[nickcmanning]

these test strips don't test for that unfortunately

 

[nickcmanning]

No one else has any input? I am not sure where to go from here.

 

[FishontheRock]

You need to get a liquid test kit. Till you do I'd recommend pwc very regularly. What is test strip value for nitrite?

 

[nickcmanning]

nitrite is at 0, nitrate is at 10

 

[FishontheRock]

Hmm...I don't know much about parrots other than that they look really weird to me so I'll let someone else speak to that.

If it were me I'd just do daily water changes as long as something looks weird. And get a liquid test kit. I had a mini cycle a few days ago and on a lark used strips as well as my api kit; the strips didn't detect any nitrite but the liquid kit was reading .5ppm. Yikes!!!

 

[nickcmanning]

Alrighty, maybe I will invest in one of those then. I know someone who has one and doesn't use it but somehow I don't see them parting with it even though it goes unused. Lol.

 

[nickcmanning]

Update on water Parameters after API Master Test Kit:

20 gallon tank

pH: 7.4
Ammonia: In between 0-0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: In between 0-5.0 ppm

 

[severum mama]

Do you have any other fish in your tank?

 

[nickcmanning]

I have 5 Harlequin Rasboras, 3 Red Eye Tetras, a Bristlenose Plecco and a Bolivian Ram

They all seem to be fine

 

[nickcmanning]

 

[mikeISright]

I had one pretty similar looking to that. This was him after 2 months of having him. And tomorrow when the lights come on i will take an after picture. He has changed quite a bit. I also want to point out that the behavior change is exactly what happened to mine. It is still timid but is starting to come out more now that he has some tiger barb buds. Goodluck with your BP

 

[nickcmanning]

I had one pretty similar looking to that. This was him after 2 months of having him. And tomorrow when the lights come on i will take an after picture. He has changed quite a bit. I also want to point out that the behavior change is exactly what happened to mine. It is still timid but is starting to come out more now that he has some tiger barb buds. Goodluck with your BP

So is it safe to assume that the behavior change is part of their overall bodily changes as well? Because as I stated above, he has never been like this before. It's almost as if me doing the tank cleaning spooked him or something! Lol.

I have had mine for about four months now and he still looks like yours after two months. And when I go to petsmart where I got him, they have BP's that are 1/3rd of his size that have fully changed over in terms of color.