Cichlids (Blood Parrots and Angelfish) Advice

Question
QUESTION: Last week, my friends tore down their 55 gal tank due to a move. I now have the tank back (it was originally mine but didnt have the room for it) and inherited 3 of their Angelfish as well (approximately 1 year old, two female Koi Angels and 1 male black Marbled Angel). One of the Koi Angels has already bonded with the Marble Angel, and had recently been attacking the other female when my friends had them.  they then kept the single female in (get this one! ugh makes me so angry!) a 1 gal plastic betta tank (which I gave them for transporting their guppies!) for the past 6 months, changing her water every few days. Well the move and drive sent her into shock and she never recovered, dying 2 days later.  The bonded pair of Angels went into my 60 gal cichlid tank, and they seem to be doing just fine. the tank has plastic and silk plants, caves and pots, and a piece of driftwood with an onion plant on it, and everyone else is swimming and eating freely without aggression.
My question is this, I KNOW this tank is overstocked now!  It contains 4 adult blood Parrot cichlids (2 are 4in and 2 are 5in without tails), a 6 in common pleco, a red tail shark (also about 5in and in this tank due to his aggression towards smaller fish, which seems to have disappeared the moment he was the small fish!  Plus he and the pleco grew up together and now they are hanging out again. Strange bonding, but they seem ubber happy about being together again) and now the 2 Angels.  I had no choice to place the Angels in this tank until the 55 gal tank is set up and cycled!  And that will take some time as I am disabled and have to have help setting up the tank, not to mention going through the cycling process again.  I have added a 60 gal haning power filter (with bio wheel) to the original 70 gal hanging power filter to aid with the added load in the tank.  and I watch the water conditions closely in all my tanks (I have 5 currently set up from 10 gal to the 60 gal-wall to wall fish tanks!).  
One of my concerns is one of my Blood Parrots is behaving strangely during the past day.  she is hanging out near the heater, under one of the water inlets.  Her color is still good.  but this is not her normal behavior at all.  she is usually very bossy and likes to change the decor of the tank, moving the gravel for hours.  I have also noticed that there is a portion of her breeding tube showing.  Ammonia, Nitrates and Nitrites are all at 0. temp in tank is at 80degrees and ph is at 7.5., I am watching levels daily due to new fish in the tank.  Everyone is eating fine (actually they are their normal ravenous selves, constantly begging for more food)  she seems to be guarding the heater area, she just ran off another parrot.  But I do not see any eggs (they have laid eggs in the past, but they were not fertile).  Their diet consists of Ocean Nutrition Cichlid flakes, Spectrum small pellets, frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms a few times a week, cooked peas, blanched zucchini, oranges and canteloupe once a week as a treat. and even red wiggler worms (which I get from my worm composting and feed them by hand after cleaning the worms off).  I have had my blood parrots for approx 8 months, having adopted them all from previous owners (1 by herself and the other 3 together), and all are approximately 4 years old now.  the one displaying the strange behavior (for her) isnt as deformed by her breeding as the other 3.  She doesn't swim weird and her mouth is more natural looking, though she still can not close it like other fish, but has a great grip when she gets my hand.  Im wondering if she is stressed out by the new additions of the Angel fish, though she doesn't seem to mind them (and she lets you know when shes not happy, by pushing and trying to bite) or if maybe she is constipated or something easily remedied.  She runs to the front of the tank when I come near (begging for food) and I just noticed a white strand of what looks like little beads in a tube (kinda like a sausage skin) coming out of her anus, nothing from her breeding tube.  Could it be that she needs to have some peas?  Everyone else has been eating the zucchini thats in the tank for the pleco today, but they all had bloodworms and brine shrimp 2 days ago. I can quickly thaw her some peas if thats the case.
And my other concern is that given that the tank is now overstocked (at least in my opinion) how long can I safely keep the 2 Angels in the 60 gal tank?  I can up partial water changes to accommodate the increased bio load (already do a 25% partial water change weekly because of the pleco being a messy fish), but I want to be sure they are all safe until I can get the 55 gal tank up and cycled. Any advice you can provide is greatly appreciated

ANSWER: Hi Marcie,
 I don't think the tank is too far into the overstocked zone, but the bigger problem may be the personalities of the fishes.  Even in a sparsely populated tank, if the fish don't get along you are going to have problems so keep an eye on that.  

 That said, the immediate issue of concern are the white stringy feces coming out of the parrot cichlid. That is a clear sign of an intestinal infection. Sadly, that might have come in with the new fish.  The solution is not simple.  There are medications that claim to treat this sort of thing but I find them to be of little use.  You should try feeding the peas, as a way to help clear out her gut. You also need to do lots of water changes (25% at a time) to help reduce the parasite load in the tank and to make sure that fish are not eating infected feces from other fish.

 Make sure that your filters are running well.  

-- Ron C.
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks Ron!  I did a partial water change of 25% and cleaned/vacuumed  the top of the gravel in the tank, added some liquid bacteria to the tank (I used this initially to start the cycling in the tank when i got the Blood Parrots, and am using it again to help cycle the 55 gal tank).  I fed the entire tank peas the same night I originally wrote you, which were quickly consumed by all!  Grace (shes the blood Parrot that was displaying strange behavior) has had normal feces since!  From what I can see, none of the fish are eliminating with the strange looking feces (the tank is in my bedroom, so I have a lot of time to watch these fish and notice more than my other tanks).

But now Grace is displaying different behavior, and I think she may be trying to spawn with one of the other Blood Parrots, Jack.

They have claimed a corner of the tank that has a pot and plants surrounding it.  Grace has turned a brilliant deep pink/orange color, and Jack has become very orange.  They both are guarding the corner from everyone (they even had a little fight with the pleco, which is very unusual for all three involved).  So Jack and Grace seem to be sparring, but maybe its mating behavior?  looks like they are kissing/biting and then rubbing against each other, but when Will or Karen enter the area they both chase them off.  Also the kok area of Jacks head seems to have become more pronounced and Grace's breeding tube is more extended than previously displayed.  They are both digging in the gravel, though Grace has more success in actually moving the gravel to the other side of the tank as her mouth isn't as deformed as Jack's.

Does this sound like breeding behavior?  I can't seem to locate breeding behavior online for Blood Parrot Cichlids.  All I seem to locate is people trashing them for being hybred fish, and saying they are nothing more than mules, being sterile.  All the other fish in the tank seems extremely interested in whats going on in that corner (as well as myself)!  

Im not looking to breed the fish and know that typically the Blood Parrot's eggs will most likely be infertile.  I have enough issues trying to find new homes for my mollies that have bred me into two new tanks!  Love the little creatures but honestly every 2 weeks another one is giving me fry!  But, the cichlids have never laid eggs in my tank or demonstrated this behavior in the 8 months that I have had them (Grace was acquired by a different person than Jack, Will and Karen.  The latter three had laid eggs in their previous owner's tank.  Not in mine.) and caring for eggs as opposed to live fry are two completely different things.

So, would it be your opinion that Grace and Jack are mating and setting up a nursery area in the corner of the tank?

Should they be successful in laying eggs that are not fertile, how will I know what to look for and what to do with the dead eggs?

And what if they are fertile? do I remove them from the tank?

Will the pleco and red tail shark make meals of the eggs or any fry born?

My deal with the mollies is if I see the new fry, I put them into a breeding net.  Whatever occurs prior to that, I am not in control of.  But if I know about them, I feel it is my duty to care for them to the best of my ability.  On Mothers Day I was given 16 new fry by Tinkerbell, my favorite Mollie, and 3 weeks prior, Wendy gave me 8 fry!  Hence why I now have two tanks of mollies when I started out with 3 fish!  I would do this with any fish or other pet in my home, and have even hand raised an abandoned baby sparrow that was born in my boston fern, when the parents didn't return for two days.  Currently I have a pair of ringneck doves in the same fern, so everyone calls me doctor dolittle!  Seems everyone knows where to come to have babies and get well taken care of.   But fish I can't just pick up and take to the vet when I have concerns, and as I said, outside of the livebearers, I have no experience with fish mating.

I have two panda corycats that look like they are mating in their tank too!  They are demonstrating the "T" positioning alot lately, but I havent seen any eggs yet.  Though their tank is heavily planted, so I may not ever see eggs.

Answer
Hi Marcie,
 It definitely sounds like the two are trying to mate. As you say, often the eggs are infertile when parrots attempt to spawn, but increasingly, they are successful.  I would not remove them from the tank; I would let the parents care for them. They are much better at it than you are.
If the eggs go white, then they are not fertilized and the parents will remove them.  

 The pleco might try to eat the eggs but that is up to the parents to defend them and do their job.  Keep in mind that cichlids lay lots of eggs precisely because most of them do not survive most of the time.  

-- Ron C.
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>

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