# My (near enough) home bred blood parrot cichlid



## BornSlippy (Jan 11, 2010)

Firstly this post discusses fish that some people find an abomination which I understand completely but I would prefer it not to turn into a flaming session.

Soooo just wanted to share a few pictures of my breedings. The origin of blood parrot cichlids (red parrots, bloody parrots...whatever you want to call them) for some reason still seems to be shrouded in mystery. Some people think they are part severum (yes just from looks but no genetically) to people thinking they are just severely inbred red devil/midas cichlids.

The 2 main cichlids that do crop up when origins are dicussed are the red devil or midas cichlid - Amphilophus citrinellus/Amphilophus citrinellus and the red head cichlid - Vieja synspila (ok thats 3 but the midas and devil are very closely related). I'm guessing it wasnt just a straight case of the 2 breeding and voila the parrot was born especially as people have done this since and produced usually a fish resembling either parent (of a mish mash of both). I would say there was probably a mutation at some point resulting in the short body parrot. Since parrots are produced in large numbers there must be large numbers of the parent fish living in fish farms somewhere.

Back in summer 06 While actually trying to breed a gold flowerhorn with my female parrot I ended up unwittingly producing a fish very much like a the blood parrot. The female parrot I will say and it's apparent from the images was not your average parrot. She was what you would call a king kong parrot and even then not all that like regular king kongs. She did have one hell of a bite on her and was as fast as lightning, regularly drawing blood if I wasnt careful while messing with "her" tank. The flowerhorn also turned out to be female and not only was that spanners to my beeding plan it also meant I had to separate them for their own safety and moving in an as yet unsexed red head cichlid I had been growing on with the female parrot. After a bit of lip locking and displaying the fish hit it off big stlye and within the week had bred. The first few batches of fry I left with the parents and despite them being the only fish in the tank the fry gradually weakened and died. I tried to ensure they got as much food as possible but alas that didnt seem to help. So as the next batch were going the same way I siphoned out about 30 of the strongest ones to a small tank with a sponge filter to see if that helped. It did indeed and the fry thrived with regular feeds of frozen bbs and daphnia then as they grew bloodworms and finally sinking pellets. Of the 20 or so fry only maybe about 4 were parrot shaped and all were marked like young red devil/midas cichlids (or indeed young blood parrots). As tank space was limited I ended up giving the non parrot shaped fish away to friends (who also guranteed they would never end up in the lfs). They all ended up very chunky looking fish but all were almost identical to their father. I also then gave 2 of the parrot shaped fry away and one stayed the same colour as the father and one ended up the double of its mother (sadly both of these fry have now passed). The other 2 I still have and one has stayed the same colour as the father and the other has gone almost completley orange and as you will see from the pictures looks like neither of its parents. The parents went on producing fry for about a year but I didnt bother to keep anymore and like the first few broods didnt last that long. A year or so after that I had to temporarily keep an agressive red texas cichlid divided in their tank and one weekend while I was staying with my girlfriend it managed to break through the (very secure) divider and kill the male red head...I was so gutted  The mother parrot I kept with her 2 offspring until one started getting very agressive and was moved to another tank then earlier this year I lost her to what I suspect was a tumor  Strangley enough within weeks of losing her I found a fish very similar in the lfs which now lives in her place. I'm not sure of either the new fish or the red head x parrots sex but they do act like a pair (though there is a little more aggression than I would like) and eggs have been laid once. Now the other parrot over the course of about 4 years or more has slowly changed to compleatly orange. To the untrained eye it looks just like a blood parrots but looking closely you can see various ways it differs from a parrot you would buy in the lfs, in fact I keep it with a store bought parrot amongst other fish. I would really like for it to be male and see if it's possibly fertile. There has been eggs and both it and the shop bought parrot defended them but again I'm not sure who laid them and even if both might be female). If I was to try this experiment again I would definently use a regular female parrot to see if this made any difference to how the offspring looked.

Some pics

Parents and fry














































The mother. She could switch between this very dark colour to almost totally yellow










Father, such a nandsome fish










Fry growing on


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## BornSlippy (Jan 11, 2010)

Continued...





































Some of them showing thier fathers markings























































When I moved some into a odds and ends comm tank


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## BornSlippy (Jan 11, 2010)

Continued...














































And finally what the 2 I still have look like today




























With the shop bought parrot










Not showing it's best, for some reason it holds its fins in when it sees the cam 



















New parrot (I love the crazy markings on it's fins)










Questions?


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## Adam98150 (Jan 12, 2009)

Wow, fantastic pics dude. Good growth rate! Keep up the good work. : victory:


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## gazz (Dec 9, 2006)

Polly parrots are said to be blend of Midas/Red devil/severum/Red headed, The hybrid in the link below is a Flowerhorn X Severum so has basically the right blend. Yet the mouth is normal, So where dose the Polly parrot cichlids deformed mouth come from ?, IMO it's linked to the stumpy look, Or there made in lab's so are tampered with, I mean if male Polly parrot cichlids are sterile so there's no breeding pairs, So who make them and what cichlids they useing ?. How do they make the tailless ones ?. 

Flowerhorn X Severum.
YouTube - flowerhorn x goldern severum


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## hippyhaplos (Jan 12, 2010)

Congrats! 

Not sure about the goldfish in with them


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## goldie1212 (Mar 5, 2010)

hippyhaplos said:


> Congrats!
> 
> *Not sure about the goldfish in with them*


goldfish and what looks to be koi aswell :sad:

nice looking fish you have there though.


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## BornSlippy (Jan 11, 2010)

gazz said:


> Polly parrots are said to be blend of Midas/Red devil/severum/Red headed, The hybrid in the link below is a Flowerhorn X Severum so has basically the right blend. Yet the mouth is normal, So where dose the Polly parrot cichlids deformed mouth come from ?, IMO it's linked to the stumpy look, Or there made in lab's so are tampered with, I mean if male Polly parrot cichlids are sterile so there's no breeding pairs, So who make them and what cichlids they useing ?. How do they make the tailless ones ?.
> 
> Flowerhorn X Severum.
> YouTube - flowerhorn x goldern severum


I'm sorry but unless that is your fish that you have bred yourself, I cannot believe there is any severum in that fish. In fact it looks to me like a regular red devil. Severums are far too far apart genetically to breed with. Thats not to say they wont try, heck I had a male cockatoo dwarf that paired with a young female convict and she laid eggs and they both defended them. I have heard many people keeping parrots and severums together and them forming a breeding pair(myself included)but the eggs never hatch. You need to think outside the box though, forget the shape as many fish can have the short body/round deformity.

Like I said for some reason the breeding of parrots still seems to be a big secret by the asian breeders. They may be using fertile males or may still be breeding a number of other fish together(though this would seem very time consuming especailly with the amount of parrots available). The tailless ones I do know about and have seen images of their creation. At an early age the tail is simply snipped off :gasp: They are snip the dorsal fins of some to produce a fish known as the unicorn parrot.



hippyhaplos said:


> Congrats!
> 
> Not sure about the goldfish in with them


What arent you sure about? The goldies and young koi are only in there temporarily. None of the other fish (which includes a an adult jack dempsey and a marbled bichir) take any notice of them.


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## gazz (Dec 9, 2006)

BornSlippy said:


> You need to think outside the box though, forget the shape as many fish can have the short body/round deformity.


My out side the box is made in a lab.

These mice are left (Domstic)House mouse,Middle mix of both,Right Wood mouse.









But these haven't been bred together off there own backs. The middle mouse was made by By injecting embryonic stem cells, 
From a wood mouse into the early embryo of a house mouse. So maybe there useing species that aren't even cichlids ?.

'Interspecies' Rodent Created Using Embryonic Stem Cells


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## BornSlippy (Jan 11, 2010)

gazz said:


> My out side the box is made in a lab.
> 
> These mice are left (Domstic)House mouse,Middle mix of both,Right Wood mouse.
> image
> ...


While I wouldnt say its impossible, it does seem like a lot of effort. Especially for a fish thats often dyed and mutilated before it arrives in the fish shop anyway. Plus look at the the media attention those glowfish danios got and even now they are banned from being sold in the UK.


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