Well... SWEET!!! Thanks guys. I would absolutely love it if this fella turned out to be a midas. I talked to my LFS owner about it, and she said she honestly didn't know... she had some blood parrots a while back that were supposedly severum/pink convict, and she said they looked very unlike blood parrots when she first got them but they eventually grew to look like normal blood parrots. She figured these would do the same, but admitted they do seem a bit old to start undergoing a drastic change of shape at this point.
The fish I bought was sold to her as a blood parrot, and given that, I'm pretty sure it is at least partially blood parrot (unless you guys have heard of people breeding tailless midas?) but I am actually hoping it turns out more midas-like than parrot-like. Maybe it's a blood parrot-midas cross?
As for his tail being cut off... Ron, you seem sure of yourself. I've seen fish with their tails manually removed in pictures and at my other LFS, and by comparison, I'd say this one is bred to have no tail. Admittedly, there's no way for me to be sure of that, but you can usually tell that there was a spot the tail used to be when it has been cut off, and by the way the fins and whatnot are positioned on my fish, I don't think that's the case. The less of a gap there is between the dorsal and anal fins at the back, the less likely the tail has been manually removed. My fish's fins actually touch back there...
Here's a fish whose back end looks much like parrots I've seen with their tails manually removed. Either way, I have not "added" to the dyieng and torture of fish, because like I said before, my LFS was not planning to reorder any more of these anyway. They simply aren't selling fast enough. My LFS hasn't sold any sort of large fish in ages, it seems (to anyone but me, that is
)
Considering my LFS owner knows how much I usually dislike blood parrots, I'm sure she wasn't telling me these things in order to get me to buy one
! I'm just rambling now, but I really do feel the need to defend her... she's a good woman who really cares about her fish, and wouldn't
knowingly lie to anyone about them. She might neglect to tell you some things if you don't ask, but she's not going to lie to your face