Curious about some cool cichlids...

[Dwarf Puffers]

Anyone got some info on discus or blood parrots?

i hear blood parrots can be agressive to little guys but are too slow to get them... correct or no?

i hear some ppl saying its "easy" to keep discus. ridicoulous(?)

and generally i'd just like to know about every1's discus and BPs :)

[Star_Rider]

no blood parrot for me..don't care for them one bit..

IMO they are not very attractive and just don't look right.

Discus are not the easy fish to take care of. young discus especially need frequent water changes. domestic discus are a bit more tolerant of our water(meaning the difference we have in hardness etc)
discus are very beautiful cichlids..but they arenot the easiest to keep.
usually it is recommended by a well versed aquariast or at least someone who is willing to take the time to do several water changes per week.

[Coler]

no blood parrot for me..don't care for them one bit..

IMO they are not very attractive and just don't look right.


No offense to anyone who keeps them or cares for them...but I strongly agree

[Dwarf Puffers]

awww lol

I think theyre cuties :)

[Into the ocean]

They are hybrids, hence the deformity in their appearance...

:mad2:

[hellocatfish]

Look up Severums, because they are suspected to be one of the ancestors of the Parrots and they are shaped somewhat like Discus, but much hardier and easier to take care of. So you will have the best of both worlds between the choices you have listed. Be warned they can get very VERY big. About 8 inches.

I do have a Parrot Cichlid I got recently and it is very cute. The parrot has its full adult orangey red coloration but is still not anywhere near fully grown. Mine is not anywhere near as deformed as some of the BP's I've seen. It actually looks a lot like a Severum in shape, only orange.

Because of the hybridization, and the fact that breeders are crossing them with ever more odd choices, you don't know what you're going to get in terms of final size and temperament. I'd really advise sticking to a pure Severum so you will have a good idea of the final outcome at maturity. If I had to do it over again, that is what I would do. But when shopping with a small child, sometimes cute-appeal wins out over common sense. My daughter is 2 and a half and likes BP's because they look like the fish in her favorite cartoon, Peep and the Big Wide World.

So, forgive me serious Cichlid enthusiasts, for I have sinned. I will eat 8 algae wafers as penance. :eek:

[Into the ocean]

So, forgive me serious Cichlid enthusiasts, for I have sinned. I will eat 8 algae wafers as penance. :eek:

:laugh:

No need to eat wafers...how can you explain that hybrid fish are against your principles to a 2 1/2 year old... that's all you needed to say.

;)

[Dwarf Puffers]

Heres something odd:

I know a few people who have BRED them in a tank of only BPs...

[hellocatfish]

Well to be honest I'm not sure myself if hybrid fish are in fact, against my principles, for the reason that I myself am considered a hybrid by many people I've had the misfortune of encountering in my life, including my own paternal grandmother who insists I have no right to exist and said ...and these are exactly her words--that I have a responsibility to NOT bring more children like myself into the world. I'm 40 years old and for those of you too young to remember the era before political correctness, let me say my grandmother was by no means in the minority in her expressed opinions. Such attacks were a regular feature of my life back then.

Now how can a human being be a hybrid? Well some people do consider the races to be so different that it is an abomination of nature to mix them and consider mixed-race people to be hybrids or if they are less polite "mutts". I'm decended from at least two races as far as I can trace up to the previous 3 generations.

Having been told more than once by a good number of people in my early years that I should never have been created nor have the right to exist and that I'm a freaky looking thing...I guess I kind of feel for the BP Cichlid. I can't be upset strictly because it is a hybrid.

However, I do feel that the mindset that has created the BP is an abusive one. The well-being of the fish are definitely being sacrificed in order to produce fish that can readily be manipulated via dyes and mutilation and passed off as new and exciting species--at least for a time (witness the "unicorn BP--which from what I can tell is a BP that has had part of its dorsal area cut out, or the heart parrot, which has had its tail docked).

So, hybridizing fish certainly is a different issue than people of diverse races having children. I don't mean to cloud or confuse the two mainly unrelated issues. I just mean to state the origins for some of my sympathies for the BP and how my own feelings are less concrete than hybridization in and of itself being against my principles. Where it occurs in nature or in animal husbandry to produce a healthy hardy result, to, for example, survive a disease that preys specifically on its parent species...then I think it's a fine thing. But to produce a living thing just to make it more amenable to cruel "cosmetic" manipulation and to actively deceive the public...yes, that is against my principles. On those grounds, I probably should not have gotten my fish. But when you're standing there in front of those cute google eyes and your own goofy looking cat had recently died and your whole family is in mourning and missing that touch of the weird and eccentric that pet provided...and your kid is all excited to see her cartoon come to life...brains turn to mush and principles fly out the window, at least sometimes.

[siklid1066]

Those little cute BPs can grow very large,Ive had one for 6 years and its a 9in softball with fins and they can be nasty too.

[hellocatfish]

Yep, I've seen the big BP's and what they can be like. Mine is going to get her own huge tank in the not-too-distant future. I don't like how she's been slinking around amongst my cories.

One of my favorite fish of all time was a HUGE pet Oscar that I had when I was a kid. He was about 12 inches at maturity and had cracked open a couple of tanks, according to my dad. I don't remember that--I'm sure it was the sort of disaster that my poor dad had to clean up and put to rights while I was asleep or at school or something like that. He was one cool fish. But he kind of forever put me off the concept of a "community cichlid." They're all an ornery bunch if given the opportunity or the right catalyst.