Parishing Parrots

[ktknight]

Hi My name is Kate and I am new to the fish world and I have recently purchased two parrot cichlids. They both became covered with white spots about 5 hours after they came home the tank was brand new and pH levels nitrite levels ammonia and hardness all ok. I then proceeded to add a bigger bubbler , removed the carbon filter and treated it ( what i presummed to be Ick by pictures on the internet) for about one week every morning with aquisol the pink fish recover in about two days but the green one became worse (more spots and sluggish) and died that night. I then went a bout Ick guard and treated the tank for another four days with that brand as the directions stated . I then bought a replacement parrot and it also became infected with the same problem and proceeded to treat it with Ick guard, but this time the original surviving fish is unaffected. Then I notice pH was high 7.8 and so was nitrite levels but ammonia was still zero. So I have been lowering the pH .2 every night and every day it increases back to its orginal point and adding cycle for the nitrite levels which is making no difference a full week later. And this morning my hopes have left me and my poor new fish died. The other is still doing fine . I just don't know what else to do. Am I using the worng treatments or am i missing an important step? THanks for your help. ~Kate

 

[thecichlidaddict]

Unfortunatelly it sounds like you bought dyed cichlids.

To get them those funky colors they dip the fish in acid to burn off the slime coat. then they dip the fish in dye. Then they dip the fish in an irritant salt solution to force the slime coat to grow back. A large number of fish die during the process. Even more die by the time they hit the lfs. still more die when consumers bring them home. The final, small amount that survive tend to live shorter lives anyway, and their growth tends to be stunted. In addition the color wears off.

Now that you know this, you can avoid these things in the future (and in turn not support such an evil practice). I think you will find you're luck will improve if you go with regular blood parrots, or even better, stick to natural fish (even the 'natural' blood parrots are unnatural hybrids).