Painted fish

[Toirtis]

Fishyfanatic, all parrots are hybrids but it is thought that the "sweetheart" parrots are mutilated as tiny babies by having their tails cut off to make them shaped like a heart,

From what I am aware, they have been selectively bred for that deformity, not butchered.....not that it is much less revolting.

 

[severum mama]

Hmmm... I know it is debated, but a lot of the members on Blood Parrot Forum think they are mutilated. I hope you are right. But given the cruelty of dyeing, would you really be surprised about the mutilation? Have you found any info on the selective breeding for "sweetheart" or "unicorn" parrots? I would love to see it if you know of any and could post links. I don't doubt you know what you are talking about as you are much more experienced than I am, but I have never really seen any proof about this process and I'm really curious about it.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

Thanks everyone. I feel bad because they were painted but I don't think that I am going to return them to the store. It's a two hour drive each way and I think I am just going to send a letter to the manager. Besides, if I return them, they will still keep selling them. Like mentioned before, I am just one person. Everyone needs to stop buying these fish. Before I purchased the parrots I had never heard of painting fish. The Tetra's are living breathing things and I am going to give them a great home. I'm sure they were stressed out enough by the travel home and I'm sure that bagging them back up and driving the two hours back is going to be horrid on them. I appreciate everyone's opinion.

I will say this though, they are very happy in their 10 gal home with their 8 snail friends.

 

[severum mama]

Well at least you will provide them with the care they need to be healthy and happy. You are right, I'm sure a 2 hour drive would be really stressful for them. I'd love to see a pic of them if you could post one.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

severum mama, I am attaching a pic of the parrots. I haven't been able to get close ups of them beacuse of the crappy digital camera. I attached a pic of them with water spots on the glass (it was right after a water change) and that's the closest I can get. The pic was taken a long time ago right after we switched over to sand so it was under construction (nothing in the tank)

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I'm going to go try to get some shots of the Tetra's.

 

[severum mama]

FF, your yellow BPs definitely do not look dyed to me.... YAAAAY! I'm not sure about your red BP tho.... it looks like a "purple" (natural colored) parrot to me but I can't tell without a close up shot. When you got it, were its eyes red like its body or a different color?

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I can't get any good pics of the Tetra's. They won't sit still and the camera that my fiance has is an old Kodak that takes horrid pictures. If you blink, your face is blurred. They are very pretty, bigger than my last Tetra's, and a pale bright blue. I know that sounds funny, but they are baby blue, but bright.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

His eyes are greenish yellow and black. I took some good pics of the new eels (not sure what kind, they were labled spiny but they look nothing like my peacock eels)

 

[severum mama]

Oh, I totally know what you mean! I keep green fire, rummy nose, and gold pristella tetras and they are by far the hardest fish for me to photograph. I'm getting better tho, it helps immensely that I got a sweet digicam for Xmas.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

Thanks severum mama, Kudo's to you!

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I have found that it takes about 200 pictures to come out with 1 that looks good. It's funny beacuse I will get a PERFECT shot but then there will be water marks on the glass. So, I clean the glass and get ready to take pics but then the fish are so riled up that they won't sit still. They chase after my hand as I clean the glass so they are hyper. HAHA. BUT, I will say, I am absolutely loving fish keeping. We just bought a 55 gal setup and have it sitting in my fiance's mothers basement until we move to a bigger place. We have way too many tanks for a loft apt. We have actually gotten rid of furnature to fit more tanks in here. There are just too many fish that I would like to have. We are trying to not get too many of one thing so we can have many different types of fish, but then trying to match fish with similar requirements gets difficult. The snails are still one of my favotires (besides my parrots)

 

[severum mama]

Cool eels, I have never kept any and don't know anything about them. They look sweet though! Too bad my tanks are all stocked....

 

[Fishyfanatic]

They are alot of fun. The ones that we had (the Spiny Peacock eels) stay burrowed but the new ones are showing no interest in burrowing. It's pretty funny because the baby parrots swim around them (literally under their faces between their head and the sand) and the eels just sit there. Then they chase each other around the tank (no nipping) and then sit in the greenery and take off again. I'm thinking the eels think they are parrots.

 

[severum mama]

LOL I'm with ya on the MTS! I have 4 tanks in a tiny 1 bedroom house, and I just set up a 5 gallon Eclipse betta tank on my desk at work. I'll get pics to my gallery soon, you should check them out. Well, I guess I am just saying that because I love it when people look at my pics.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I just wish that I could take good enough pics for people to actually WANT to look at. :0) We are still in the process of setting up the tanks that we want them (as natural looking as possible) but thats really hard to do with limited places to purchase from. Everyone's tanks always look AWESOME and I compare them to mine and think AUGH, all that hard work and they still look like a 2 year old put it together.

 

[severum mama]

I checked out your gallery and that's not the impression I got... 8)