Tank mates dissapearing!!! Blood Parrots May Have Eaten Them

serum114

serum114

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Dec 2, 2006
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Hello all, new to the forum. Having an issue, I recently lost three tank mates to my juvenile blood parrots, i think. Anyone have any experience with these fish are know if the will actually eat smaller fish. They have a very very timid and peaceful demeanor, never seen a sign of aggression, yet im now missing two Danios, and my favorite female betta is gone as well, checked drift wood, rocks and no sign, no fins no bones nothing gone. I also checked inside and out my Emperor 400 no signs anywhere! And there not on the floor anywhere either! lol oh and no pets in my house.

The two parrots are about 3-4 inches. The danios i could see them fitting in their mouths, but my betta was around 2-3 inches herself and very very healthy and fat, and was there one night gone the next, no fish remains anywhere. Thanks for any help you give.
 
parrot cichlid's can get quite agressive, they are cichlids at heart after all. i wouldn't be surprised if your parrot ate it's tankmates, seeing as how there doesn't seem to be other explanations for it. my friend has a couple parrot cichlids, and one day he added a crayfish thinking it would be able to hold its own but that definately wasn't the case. one day while it was shedding (they are quite vulnerable at this stage) the parrots ganged up on it and tore it to pieces.....
 
I would agree that at least the danios were likely gobbled up. In reality, most any fish that can fit another in its mouth is going to take the meal just because it is the most nutritious food source and doesnt come along very often. However, if your betta just dissapeared, I would find it hard to believe that it got eaten since they can be quite aggressive and hold their own in most cases. Are you sure you looked everywhere? I would go in the tank and look underneath and inside everything in the tank, including filter intakes. If you have a pleco in the tank, its possible that the betta died somehow and the pleco sucked it up enough to make it hard to find (I know, not a good mental picture, but still plausible).

This is why, in general, it is not advised often to mix too many community fish in with cichlids, even if the cichlids are known to be less aggressive in nature. Keep in mind that the measure of aggression is not against all fish in most cases, but compared to other cichlids. Angel fish are cichlids as well and then people wonder why their guppies all of a sudden vanish. I wont say it cant be done, and in fact, I have tiger barbs in my cichlid tank, but the non-cichlid fish has to be chosen very carefully just to be on the safe side.
 
Thanks for the replies... I hate to say it but you are probably right they must have eaten the betta and danios. My poor betta :sad:, her tank got cracked and I had to put her in, so its my fault and thats sad. Good news is the other fish in the tank should be fine, my rainbow shark commands the bottom front of tank by his cave and will run off the parrots if they venture there, and my dwarf flame gourami seems to command the top left of tank so he's good to go as well. The Parrots control the entire middle of tank and the backside of the bottom as well. Anyone with any experience know of any other good tank mates for the parrots, ive read lots of suggestions but would like some info from someone who has kept blood parrots. thanks

ps i checked the tank again last night inside and out, filter return inside the emperor 400, all around the tank just to make sure the betta didnt jump out, but i only have a very very small opening to avoid such things. No sign anywhere.
 
bala sharks are supposed to be docile... I found out the hard way that they have no issues with eating their tank mates.


So anything is possible
 
That is so true with fish. I had a paradise fish that tortured a rescued 7" pacu. This tiny little 2 inch fish would chase bite and nip the PACU all day, finally found a lfs to take the fish. It was a new tank owner who got suckered by local Petsmart and bought a pacu for her 10gallon!!! Petsmart makes me sick! The Pacu hit the 7inch mark in less than 8-9 months. It was a very cool fish if i had a giant fw tank I would have kept it.
 
Also to those who were thinking about keeping Blood Parrots, make sure not to get any tankmates that are small enough to eat and make sure they can hold their own like my rainbow shark and dwarf gourami... Lesson learned, a lesson that cost me my favorite female betta.
 
blood parrots cannot move fast enough to catch danios and even if they could, they cannot move their mouths to bite down and catch them to eat them. the danios arent just going to swim into the parrots open mouth, and a 3" parrots mouth is not big enough for a daino to fit into. nor would the be able to eat a female betta. its just too big to fit in their mouths, and again they cannot bite down to catch the fish.


the missing fish are probably somewhere in the gravel or in the tank stand.

i have an allmost fully grown parrot with angels, black skirt tetras, and peppered corydoras and i have had no problems whatsoever. no eating and no agression. parrots are one of the more docile cichlids, as they do have severum blood running through their veins. in fact, io have never seen a parrot be agressive unless they are "breeding," but all cichlid parents are. just because they are the biggest fish in the tank does not mean they ate the fish. have you eve considered that if could be the shark that ate the danios? IME, they are much better equipped, and are fast enough to catch one
 
jm1212 said:
blood parrots cannot move fast enough to catch danios and even if they could, they cannot move their mouths to bite down and catch them to eat them. the danios arent just going to swim into the parrots open mouth, and a 3" parrots mouth is not big enough for a daino to fit into. nor would the be able to eat a female betta. its just too big to fit in their mouths, and again they cannot bite down to catch the fish.


the missing fish are probably somewhere in the gravel or in the tank stand.

i have an allmost fully grown parrot with angels, black skirt tetras, and peppered corydoras and i have had no problems whatsoever. no eating and no agression. parrots are one of the more docile cichlids, as they do have severum blood running through their veins. in fact, io have never seen a parrot be agressive unless they are "breeding," but all cichlid parents are. just because they are the biggest fish in the tank does not mean they ate the fish. have you eve considered that if could be the shark that ate the danios? IME, they are much better equipped, and are fast enough to catch one
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I have considered that, like I stated in my orginal post, I've never seen any aggression at all. Im at a lost checked the gravel no signs, checked the gravel very well no signs either, even did a 30 percent water change and vacumed gravel still no sign, now the danios are small enough, if they died the fish could clean them quickly, but my female betta was a big big girl (for a betta) its so strange how their is no trace of her anywhere not even a fin and all in less than 12 hours she was there in the morning at 9am and gone at 9pm, I have an emperor 400 that has intake slots so small no fish except for fry could fit. Its just one of those mysteries that will go unsolved... wait maybe it was the aliens... lol j/k and thanks for the reply
 
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