Is this parrot fish breathing abnormally?

[Jacky12]

Today I added 4 large (4-6") parrot fish to a 110 g that houses an Oscar and Jack Dempsey that were raised together by the previous owner along with 3-4 parrot fish. They are interacting extremely well. I changed 60% of the water yesterday.


I immediately noticed one pf is breathing rapidly with flared operculums. The other 3 are not & i have never seen the pair i have had in another tank for over a year do this. I thought this may have been a stress reaction from the 80 minute transport in a cooler, but the behavior persists. The cooler did have a battery operated blubbler. Should I be concerned? Is there anything to be done now?

 

[Colin_T]

It could have a deformed gill cover (they are mutants anyway), gill flukes, or it's displaying a threat behaviour (flaring its gill covers out).

Can you post a one minute video of it?

 

[Jacky12]

the previous owner finally replied & said it’s always been like that, so I suspect it’s some kind of congenital defect. He is two yrs old. Hers grew a lot faster in a 75 g crowded tank than my pair did in a larger tank. I don’t get it.

They are indeed odd little mutants. This one looks really goofy, like he’s puffing his cheeks.

She gave me some color enhancing parrotfish food that cost $30 on Amazon. My pair are actually more intensely colored on regular pellets & flakes. Do you think all this cichlid color enhancing food is BS? Never impressed me.

How does one post a vid here? Would it have to go to a YouTube link?

 

[Colin_T]

They are an inbred balloon fish and have a heap of genetic issues so if it has always been like that, then it's genetic.

Colour enhancing foods do work but need to be fed every day for several months before you notice any difference. A good quality varied diet and clean tank will also help fish colour up. If you want to increase red, orange or yellow colours in fish you can offer red or orange fruits and veges (orange squash, pumpkin, paprika). If you want to encourage blue in fish, feed blueberries and purple carrots, or the juice from them.

Videos can be uploaded to YouTube, then copy & paste the link here.

 

[Jacky12]

Thanks, Colin. I did find a Blood Red Parrot Group. The consensus is as you say, it’s a congenital defect & not terribly uncommon. All four, including the one with weird gill flaps, are active & doing great. I had concerns re how the Oscar & JD in that tank would react, but all is well.

A guy in Australia has a striking yellow one with green fins. Others in this group have pink ones and somebody posted a link to a company in Nova Scotia that has blue, pink, lavender, yellow & green parrot fish. I’m gonna try to figure out how these are bred. I thought they were all orange, but apparently not.

Here’s a photo, made bad by window reflections & this old iPad.

Wait, the file is too large for this site, so I’ll resize it later on laptop.

 

[Jacky12]

I had an online chat with the company in Nova Scotia. I asked if the fish were dyed and they said yes. I said: How? They said: Not in a good way. I said: Injected? They said: Yes. I said: I won’t be buying any parrot fish from you. They said: We agree it’s a bad practice and we don’t stock them, but get in a shipment or two a year. It makes no sense because the colors fade. They didn’t reply when I asked how long the colors lasted and terminated the chat. Very interesting.

 

[Colin_T]

Can you post a link to the ones in Nova Scotia?
I wanna have a looksie at them

The only fish I know of that was regularly injected with dye were painted glass fish (Chanda species). As far as I know, that stopped in the early 90s because nobody in Australia would buy them and the suppliers were told to f off. They still painted them (instead of injecting) but that was slowly phased out.

If the fish that were injected with dye didn't die, they would fade within a few months and generally show no colour from the dye after 6 months. However, very few lived that long after they were injected.

The fish that were painted (yes they literally lift the fish out of water, dry it and use a paint brush with paint) would shed the coloured scales within a few weeks of being painted and after a couple of months they would have no colour on them.

 

[Jacky12]

https://1fish2fishdartmouth.com/products/assorted-colored-parrot

Hope this opens for you. People online are saying the colors can begin fading in a few months or get blotchy & then fade. Some companies cut the tails off baby Blood Parrots to create heart shaped bodies. Disgusting.

But I do like the 4 regular ones a girl gave me Sunday. They are interacting superbly with the small Oscar & JD in the 110. They were getting too big for her crowded 75 g tank. She had several smaller fish there. She breeds Mystery Snails. I had never seen any & found one in the cooler when I got home. It’s big! I don’t like snails but tossed him into my OB tank that has pest snails from plants bought at the LFS. Do you happen to know if these snails can breed without another one? I’ve heard some do.

 

[Colin_T]

The area on fish where the tail meets the body is called the caudal peduncle. If this is damaged (someone cutting the tail off there), the tail won't grow back.

If there is a website selling fish that have had their tails cut off, that is a matter for animal welfare and should be reported to them. It falls under cruel and inhumane treatment.

------------------

Mystery snails do not breed out of control. They have separate sexes (either male or female) and have to breed to produce eggs. If the snail is female and had not mated within 24 hours of you getting it, then it won't produce any eggs. Their eggs are white or pale pink round balls about 1-2mm diameter and laid in clusters out of the water (usually on a coverglass). The embryos develop in the eggs and when they hatch, they drop into the water and start their lives.

I hate pest snails in aquariums but I like Mystery snails. They can be kept with your cichlids assuming they don't get eaten by the cichlids. They won't breed out of control and are easy to remove from an aquarium. They can also grow to a couple of inches in diameter so make an interesting pet for children due to the snail's size.

 

[Jacky12]

I an unaware of a site selling Heart Blood Red Parrots, but they are usually mentioned in discussions of the BRP.

Speaking of snails, the LFS had some huge white ones with white bodies. The owner said a customer traded them in. She couldn’t ID & had a sign on the tank that said: Very Large Snails. lol. She wanted $9 for each. Hugest snails I ever saw! About 2.5” high and wider at the bottom, oval shaped.

 

[Colin_T]

Did you get a picture of the huge snails?

 

[Jacky12]

Didn’t think of it, wish I had. Next time unless they sell out.