Blood Parrot Cichlid Behavior

Question
I have a Blood Parrot cichlid that I rescued approximately a month ago.  When I obtained her (not sure of sex but I refer to it as "her" or Grace Adler due to the re-decorating behavior I have witnessed) she was in a filthy 20 gal tank with a 6-7" Jack Dempsey cichlid.  I have since re-homed the Jack Dempsey to a man with a 100 gal tank, and my Blood Parrot has been alone in the tank for the past week. The tank conditions are good (ie no ammonia, nitrates, ph is 7.0, water temp is 78). I do partial water changes every Sunday of 25%

She has rearranged every pebble in the tank, and made herself several low valleys, where she takes food like fresh shrimp pieces, and stores it. I allow her to keep it for about an hour, but then I take it away.  When I do take the food, she comes charging at me, but stops just about an inch or two from my hand.

Whenever I want to clean her tank, she "charges" my hand while I am removing her cave rocks, flowerpot cave or silk plants to clean.  Today she bit me!  She hasn't hurt me or anything close to it, but it did startle me and I withdrew my hand from her tank quickly (of course I was laughing at myself afterwards because I allowed a fish to startle me enough to retreat!).  I think I gave her the impression that I am afraid of her by doing this, because she kept trying to bite me or the gravel vacuum when I proceeded to clean the tank.  And several times, she did bite me (more of her lips biting me, but they are strong!)

Is this charging and biting normal behavior for a Blood Parrot cichlid?  I was under the impression that they were more docile than other cichlids.

I have been cycling a 40 gal tank for her to move into, because I know this 20 gal I got her and the jack Dempsey in was far too small for either of them, let alone together.  When the Jack Dempsey was in the tank with her, she would chase after it and wouldn't allow it to eat when I fed them.  It was starving, and re-homing it was the only option I had at the time.  The Jack Dempsey seemed the more docile of the two even then.  But I thought the aggressive behavior would stop once I removed the Jack Dempsey.  It just seems to me that now she sees my hand as another fish invading her territory or something.

I was planning on putting my rubber lipped pleco into the 40 gal with the blood parrot.  But now I am concerned that he would get beat up by the blood parrot if I did.

Do you think when she moves into a bigger tank that this aggressive behavior will diminish?  Or do you think I just have a blood parrot cichlid that doesn't fit the norm for the species?

Any insight on normal behavior for this cichlid would be appreciated greatly.  I have a lot of other fish in different tanks (barbs, bettas, gourami, clown loach, red tailed shark and mollies) but cichlids are very new to me.  It isn't a fish I would have picked for myself, and had they not been in such horrid living conditions, I most likely never would have gotten one for my tanks.  But I just couldn't leave them where they were in those condiions, so now I have one.  Everything I am going on about this species is what I have obtained on the internet.

Thanks for your help!


Answer
Hi Marcie,

Behavior like this is not very common in Blood Parrots. The only time when they can get aggressive is during breeding, but as there are no other Parrots or Cichlids in the tank, this is unwarranted.

Aggressive behavior can be minimized by doing:

-Completely re-arranging the rock structure in the tank
-Addition of live plants (only sturdy and not tasty plants!)
Examples: Amazon Sword, Java Fern, Anubias, etc.

Perhaps you could spend a bit more time with her every day. This could be just as simple as watching the tank for 10 minutes daily. if she constantly sees you and you do not do anything aggressive, like tap the glass, she will no longer consider you a threat.

Perhaps you can try hand-feeding her. Hold some Cichlid pellets in you hand, and put your hand in the water with them. If she realizes that your hand is not a threat, she will no longer bite it.

Also, perform a 30% water change, replacing with fresh, clean water.

Good Luck, and Happy Fishkeeping!