Possible dither fish?

[SomethingSmellsFishy]

I have a 55 gal with one adult-sized blood parrot and two clown loaches. It is partitioned off by a divider. The smaller partition houses a serpae tetra. I found myself in a situation where he/she was the only fish in one of my 10 gallons and decided to move him/her over to the 55 and bought a divider so the blood parrot wouldn't eat him or her.

I didn't really want to upkeep multiple tanks...and one for just one little tetra.

Well anyways, I'm getting a bit off topic here. My blood parrot is a bit of a bully. I originally had him housed with an angelfish, bala shark (I know, too big for a 55), a blue gourami, and a clown pleco.

Needless to say, the blood parrot has literally bullied all the other fish to death. I'm 99% certain they died from stress related illnesses. The blood parrot is very territorial. He nips my hand whenever I clean the tank (and some of his bites hurt!).

So the clown loaches are the only remaining survivors. They're pretty big - I'd guess around 5 inches, and they aren't bothered when the blood parrot chases them away from his clay pot (hehe).

Do you have any advice for possible dither fish I could keep in the tank? I was thinking silver dollars - is that a good choice?

What about any other South American cichlids? Would a blood parrot bully an adult convict or firemouth?

How can I prevent bullying?

I'll only do this after I take the divider out. Either that tetra is going to die soon (he/she is pretty old) or it's going to the pet store. :/

 

[Stephen]

I wouldn't even try taking out that divider between the clown loaches and the blood parrot. At some point in the future, the parrot will go after your loaches. Remember, clown loaches don't have scales, so you'd probably end up with open sores on your loaches if you remove the divider.

Adding some more South American cichlids won't be of much help. All you will achieve is adding more aggression into the tank, regardless of whether it's a convict or a firemouth.

If you want to keep the clown loaches, I suggest you bring back your parrot to the LFS for some store credit, if they're willing to take him.

 

[SomethingSmellsFishy]

The divider separates a small tetra and the blood parrot and loaches. The loaches are with the blood parrot. He chases them every now and then, but never bites them and the loaches don't care. They've lived with him for years now.