My New Sweetheart Parrot Cichlids-rant

[AndrewZ]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to this forum, I just "inherited" an aquarium and fish from acquaintances who are leaving the country. I have parrots and some aquarium knowledge, so they entrusted me with taking care of their fish!

I know this is old news... but after doing some research I discovered that 2 of them are parrot cichlids - on top of being deformed manmade cross-species hybrids, their tails were apparently amputated. It's horrifying, and I feel sickened and sad every time I see their tail stumps. Anyway, they're wonderful and happy fish and I hope to give them the best care... I just wanted to rant! I hope I don't ever see amputated (or dyed) fish in a store, the staff won't be very happy with me!

Here's a pic of one of the poor fids

 

[Synirr]

Poor little guy, that definitely does look cropped

 

[valleyrich]

Awwww how aweful!!! He would be gorgeous if he had a tail! He's lovely anyway but a shame they mutilated him!

 

[Nevergone815]

i understand as synirr has said that there is a genetic mutation that actually creates the tailless parrot known as sweetheart parrots. this is just an example though of people not wanting to breed out those lines and wanting to take a short cut and crop the tails. beautiful fish, but would have been prettier IMO if they just left the tail on and didn't crop it.

 

[diburning]

i understand as synirr has said that there is a genetic mutation that actually creates the tailless parrot known as sweetheart parrots. this is just an example though of people not wanting to breed out those lines and wanting to take a short cut and crop the tails. beautiful fish, but would have been prettier IMO if they just left the tail on and didn't crop it.

that one's definitely snipped. The tailess mutation can be distinguishec because the top and bottom fins start to grow into the spot where the tail is supposed to be. if its snipped, all you get is a big gap.