Blood Red Parrot Stress and being bullied

[Proberge4273]

Hey everyone,
I’m new to this forum trying to get some pointers on my pair of blood red parrots one I believe is a male and one is a female.
I have had them for about a month and they have been in a community 29gallon tank yes I know a 29 gallon is on the smaller side for 2 blood red they are babies right now and I am in the works on upgrading to a 75 gallon or to 150 in the next month or so.
The community tank has a variety of fish including mollies, tetras, African cichlid, Cory catfish, pleco, and everyone seems to be getting along besides the two blood parrots the male seems to be very aggressive to the female and will chase her around the tank and ram her into corners. She is turning black on her body and her fins which I am thinking is due to stress from the other red parrot she is swimming and eating but hides a lot I do have another tank set up and has been running for a month or so should I separate the two and if so should I pull out the sick female red parrot to get healthy again or the male aggressive one?

[Andy Sager]

If your second tank has no other fish in it, I'd move the female but if it is another community tank, I'd move the male.
On a side note, if the fish are small, they may not be sexable yet so you might actually have 2 males with the larger one trying to show it's dominance towards the other. Either way, I'd keep them separated until they can go into the larger tank. Here's the thing with young fish of larger species: They think like a large fish even when they are small fish. They want space, the more the better and no challengers.

[Proberge4273]

The other tank doesn’t have any other fish it used to hold two angle fish that unfortunately passed away water change has been done after that and added some beneficial bacteria.

[Andy Sager]

Originally Posted by Proberge4273

The other tank doesn’t have any other fish it used to hold two angle fish that unfortunately passed away water change has been done after that and added some beneficial bacteria.

Then I'd move the suspected female into that tank. If it's been over a week since you added the bacteria, add some more because the bacteria does not live without an ammonia source.

[Proberge4273]

The "female" blood parrot has been moved to the other tank and is now hiding in a cave let's see if that helps the stress and black spots. I did add more bacteria before moving the fish just to be on the safe side and also API stress coat. Would this behavior change or calm down once I get the bigger 75-150 gallon tank or would you suggest getting another Blood parrot I read that it could calm down aggression to the female I really want them to be in the same tank together.

[Andy Sager]

Originally Posted by Proberge4273

The "female" blood parrot has been moved to the other tank and is now hiding in a cave let's see if that helps the stress and black spots. I did add more bacteria before moving the fish just to be on the safe side and also API stress coat. Would this behavior change or calm down once I get the bigger 75-150 gallon tank or would you suggest getting another Blood parrot I read that it could calm down aggression to the female I really want them to be in the same tank together.

Give her time. She's been traumatized from the aggression and now the move so it's going to take some time for it to calm down and get " normal". The only real sign you should be looking for now is if she eats. Try to feed tomorrow. If she does, don't worry about anything else unless there are bruises that are bleeding or get infected. Cichlids need space and a 29 is not that much space. That is probably more your issue.