Aggressive blood parrot.

[firemouth29]

I have a 55 gallon tank that has been set up for a couple weeks. A few days ago I added a small blood parrot about 2” then the next day I added an electric blue acara and a fire mouth who are both probably also around 2” (all three can be seen on my profile picture) and the blood parrot has been chasing them around very frequently. It seems to get worse around feeding time. Ammonia nitrite and nitrate were all good when I checked. What can I do to either calm the blood parrot or prevent its aggression?

 

[Andy Sager]

I have a 55 gallon tank that has been set up for a couple weeks. A few days ago I added a small blood parrot about 2” then the next day I added an electric blue acara and a fire mouth who are both probably also around 2” (all three can be seen on my profile picture) and the blood parrot has been chasing them around very frequently. It seems to get worse around feeding time. Ammonia nitrite and nitrate were all good when I checked. What can I do to either calm the blood parrot or prevent its aggression?

Nope. It is a cichlid which means they can be mean. Same applies to all 3 of your fish. The best you can do is have a lot of rock work in the tank so that each fish can create a home territory which it will defend against any other fish that comes into it's territory.
Your tank sounds very new. Do you know about the cycling process?

 

[firemouth29]

Nope. It is a cichlid which means they can be mean. Same applies to all 3 of your fish. The best you can do is have a lot of rock work in the tank so that each fish can create a home territory which it will defend against any other fish that comes into it's territory.
Your tank sounds very new. Do you know about the cycling process?

yes I know they can tend to be agressive I have a good amount of Rocks wood and plants in the tank would it be better to get another fish to help disperse the aggression? I don’t want to overstock the tank. I know about the cycling process I gave it a week and a half to cycle and checked ammonia nitrites and nitrates before adding the fish.

 

[Andy Sager]

yes I know they can tend to be agressive I have a good amount of Rocks wood and plants in the tank would it be better to get another fish to help disperse the aggression? I don’t want to overstock the tank. I know about the cycling process I gave it a week and a half to cycle and checked ammonia nitrites and nitrates before adding the fish.

Let me start by saying, unless you added living microbes to cycle the tank, your tank will not naturally cycle in 10-14 days. The cycling process doesn't start until you add an ammonia producer into the tank. In a natural cycle, it usually takes a couple of months or longer to complete. With using established filter material or " bacteria in a bottle", the cycling process gets down to weeks, but not days. This is a picture of the whole cycling process in graph form. You'll see how ammonia looks the same in the beginning and the end of that cycle. The Nitrite cycle will also look the same only there will be an increase in nitrates as the nitrites fall back to zero.
The reason this is important is because adding more fish too soon only jeopardizes all the fish sooner. The only time it's safe to add fish is before the ammonia level starts to rise or after the nitrite cycle goes back down to zero. When you do a " fish in" cycle ( using fish as the ammonia producer) , you need to test regularly so that you don't allow the ammonia and nitrite level combined to go above 0.5 ppm. At that point you will need to be doing water changes to keep the levels below that combined 0.5 ppm in order to keep the water safe for the fish.

As for your current situation, you will not spread out the aggression with more fish. You will only add another fish for the Parrot to beat up on. There is obviously not enough hiding spots for the 3 fish or the Parrot has established a bigger area as HIS territory so any fish that comes into it is going to get some pushback. You COULD try rearranging all the decorations in the tank so that the 3 fish all have to establish new territories. No guarantees but this method does work with many territorial species.

 

[firemouth29]

Let me start by saying, unless you added living microbes to cycle the tank, your tank will not naturally cycle in 10-14 days. The cycling process doesn't start until you add an ammonia producer into the tank. In a natural cycle, it usually takes a couple of months or longer to complete. With using established filter material or " bacteria in a bottle", the cycling process gets down to weeks, but not days. This is a picture of the whole cycling process in graph form. You'll see how ammonia looks the same in the beginning and the end of that cycle. The Nitrite cycle will also look the same only there will be an increase in nitrates as the nitrites fall back to zero. View attachment 390289
The reason this is important is because adding more fish too soon only jeopardizes all the fish sooner. The only time it's safe to add fish is before the ammonia level starts to rise or after the nitrite cycle goes back down to zero. When you do a " fish in" cycle ( using fish as the ammonia producer) , you need to test regularly so that you don't allow the ammonia and nitrite level combined to go above 0.5 ppm. At that point you will need to be doing water changes to keep the levels below that combined 0.5 ppm in order to keep the water safe for the fish.

As for your current situation, you will not spread out the aggression with more fish. You will only add another fish for the Parrot to beat up on. There is obviously not enough hiding spots for the 3 fish or the Parrot has established a bigger area as HIS territory so any fish that comes into it is going to get some pushback. You COULD try rearranging all the decorations in the tank so that the 3 fish all have to establish new territories. No guarantees but this method does work with many territorial species.

I did add some bottled bacteria to the tank about a week before adding the fish and then added some more after introducing the fish but I will continue to watch the ammonia nitrites and nitrates and do water changes. I’ve been watching the fish closely today and he seems to have chilled out some compared to the first couple days with his new tank mates if it gets worse I will try to rearragenge the tank decor and add more hiding spots. Thanks for the info

 

[Andy Sager]

I did add some bottled bacteria to the tank about a week before adding the fish and then added some more after introducing the fish but I will continue to watch the ammonia nitrites and nitrates and do water changes. I’ve been watching the fish closely today and he seems to have chilled out some compared to the first couple days with his new tank mates if it gets worse I will try to rearragenge the tank decor and add more hiding spots. Thanks for the info

Here's a tip: when you use the bacteria in a bottle products, you need to have ammonia in the water to keep the bacteria alive. You probably had massive die off of the bottled stuff in that week you waited to add the first fish. So you need to consider only what you added when you added the fish and not the double dose. You'll know you are more stabilized when there is nitrates in the water ( Test your source water to make sure there are no nitrates in that. )
When it comes to cichlids, they need to establish their territories and once everybody gets onboard with their limitations on where they can and can't go, there is more peace in the tank.