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My poor new parrot fishies… :(

I picked these five beauties up yesterday, not realizing the sordid past involved. Many of you have probably heard of parrot fish -- these are "jelly bean" parrots, and it wasn't until doing some online searching that I learned just how cruel life's been to the little guys. First off, they're mutts. Their fascinating yet arguably unhealthy body shape and scheme is the result of crossbreeding, and what's even stranger? I can't find a site that positively identifies which two types of fish were crossbred. Apparently, it's like the Colonel's recipe or some shit. This has given the little mutants a wealth of problems -- their spines are abnormal, they can't chew food like most other fish, eyes are a bit fucked...so on and so on. That's just the half of it, though.

The fish are popular mainly because, as freshwater fish, they have alarmingly bright colors. Beautiful? Yes, but completely unnatural. During their albino adolescence, the fish are injected with dye-loaded needles, which literally spread the fluid colors through the parrots' bodies. Pretty sick, aye? And you thought GloFish were bad. The process invariably kills many of the fish, and the ones who survive potentially contract diseases from others by way of the dirty dye needles. Worse yet, the fish are charged with a terribly shortened lifespan. All that shit for a little extra color -- a color that will usually fade out in time. I had absolutely no idea about any of this when the fish were purchased, and while I'm not gonna pretend to be some big activist (I once ate alligator jerky), it's still kinda frigged up. Fish like these filter mainly filter here from Japan, and have been banned in a few other countries.

Four of the parrots came from the same store -- the fifth, called a "Christmas Parrot," came from another. I was taken with the last one because it was A) cheap, B) cute n' small, and C) off-white with green speckles. The lady working there told us that the fish "used to be red and green," citing how the parrots sometimes change colors. That's true, but not in this case -- it just lost its unnatural dye.

They're pretty fish, though. And they smile a lot. Must've blocked out the bad memories.

Posted by Matt on 01/21/2004. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 57 comments

I really feel pretty freaking sorry for those first post fish. Wonder if they fry up well?

Chestnuts roasted by Nachokhaki @ 01/21/2004 7:05 PM

Well Nacho, I’ll give you credit for creatively nailing the first post bit. ;)

I have a dilemma, though. I hate what I’ve read about the fish, but I want to buy more of them.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 01/21/2004 7:09 PM

aww.. well there cute fish.. w00t third post..

Chestnuts roasted by Johnny Blaze @ 01/21/2004 7:27 PM

It doesn’t have anything to do with the fish, but if Matt wants to stock up on cheap cans of Pringles, National Wholesale Warehouse (The WalMart of 99c stores) in Linden is selling Halloween Orange ones for 79c a can. I looked at one of the cans and the experation date is next Oct, so you can buy now and stock up snacks for next All Hallows Eve. :) Or celebrate halloween in June to be followed by Christmas in July. :)

Chestnuts roasted by Garrison @ 01/21/2004 7:32 PM

That’s a pretty sad life :( What do those fish eat? Do they eat coral like "normal" parrot fish?

Chestnuts roasted by pikachulover @ 01/21/2004 7:38 PM

Just about anything, though I was advised to incorporate algae discs into their diet, which have a more scientific name that I know how to pronounce but not spell. So there you have it.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 01/21/2004 7:40 PM

I’m no activist, but to do my part, I make sure that the only marine life that I cultivate "Grows 700%!!! in just 72 hours" and resembles space martians, ancient dinosaurs, or real-life scorpions.

Chestnuts roasted by D-d-dave-some @ 01/21/2004 7:50 PM

That’s really awful, but it’s hard to argue that the fish look beautiful. Is it better to buy them and give them a happy home for the rest of their painfully shortened lives, or leave them to suffer in the pet store so as not to encourage more of their fishie buddies to suffer? Meh, I say buy as many as you want. They’re pretty.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 01/21/2004 8:04 PM

…pretty…ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh ahhhhhhhhhhh

Chestnuts roasted by Scourge @ 01/21/2004 8:10 PM

Buy yourself an Alf cake pan: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2373930461&category=25466

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 01/21/2004 8:20 PM

Matt, you can take solace in the fact that you’re not the sickest person out there…I’ve been known to pass away a bored Saturday afternoon with a rod and reel in someone else’s goldfish bowl. Catch and release, mind you…eating those little bastards went out with my great-grandmother’s generation.

Chestnuts roasted by Monster Dog @ 01/21/2004 8:48 PM

I wonder how much longer it will be legal to buy these. Or is it?
Oh well, give them a nice home.

Chestnuts roasted by Andrew T. @ 01/21/2004 9:00 PM

Christmas fish and Halloween Pringles, we just can’t let go of the holidays. Admit it: January through September is just an awful excuse for a vacation.

Wake me up when Garfield puts his pirate outfit back on.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt (#2?) @ 01/21/2004 9:16 PM

Poor dears! I know you shouldn’t, but Matt, give more a home. It’s like taking in stray dogs or cats. At least someone is giving them better care than they would likely recieve in a pet shop.

I’ve always wondered…Matt, how do all 1,000 of your cats take to having floting bits of what they probably consider brightly colored lunch around? Have they ever made a try for them?

Chestnuts roasted by starwenn @ 01/21/2004 9:18 PM

Poor little fishes :( I want to hug their tiny little horrendously manipulated bodies.

Chestnuts roasted by Evin @ 01/21/2004 9:24 PM

We had neon tetras ( I think) and the guy that sold them to us said that they were injected with dye at the beginning of their little life. He didn’t say anything about it shortening their life span any though. 2 of them lasted a year, the third one died the first day we brought it home. It was gross at the end of the year, they had just turned a clear white. They were pretty when they were younger though, all bright pink, green and yellow.

Chestnuts roasted by Stacey @ 01/21/2004 10:21 PM

I bought a few of these a couple years back from Wally World.

The dye lasted a little over a year but the funked up thing is that after all the dye washed out the fish are now 90% clear. I can see thier brain, heart, spinal cord, stomic and intestines.

Its like having the reincarnation of that guy from the 80s who had the see through skin suit to teach you about proper diet* swmining around my tank.

*Anyone know who im talking about? He was on Nick early 80′s IIRC.

Chestnuts roasted by Mr Mango @ 01/21/2004 10:27 PM

"The cold hard lands
they bites our hands,
they gnaws our feet.
The rocks and stones
are like old bones
all bare of meat.
But stream and pool
is wet and cool:
so nice for feet!
And now we wish -

Alive without breath;
as cold as death;
never thirsting, ever drinking
clad in mail, never clinking.
Drowns on dry land,
thinks an island
is a mountain;
thinks a fountain
is a puff of air.
So sleek, so fair!
What a joy to meet!
We only wish
to catch a fish,
so juicy-sweet!
"

:)

Seriously, I feel really bad for these fish. Stupid marketing people are going to destroy the world. And you KNOW it was the marketing people that came up with this idea.

Chestnuts roasted by Cameron @ 01/21/2004 10:42 PM

Those parrots are actually created by crossbreeding Red Devils with Severums. Both are cichlids with fairly shitty dispositions, though the sevrums get around a foot long. Just my two cents.

Chestnuts roasted by "Wild" Bill @ 01/21/2004 10:56 PM

I had a RD is one of our old tanks, and it lived up to its name. It was also the last fish to die, despite increasing indications by the tank’s decayed condition that it should’ve died months before it did.

Course, now that we’ve got all these parrots, we’re kinda limited in what we can add. I really wanted a shovelnose (think shark/catfish), but they’re said to swallow basically anything in sight. Oh well.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 01/21/2004 10:59 PM

Fish are friends, not food. Buy more and have a tank full of rainbow.

Chestnuts roasted by Killer Duck @ 01/21/2004 11:22 PM

Here it comes, the Former Aquarium Store guy’s perspective.

Blood parrots (as we always knew them) are generally pretty gentle compared to their parents (Red Devils earn that name, Severums are just very territorial). I have known Parrots to live for 5-10 years. Long for a fish, short for a big cichlid. And these ones will never breed, because they’re like mules–cross breeds are usually sterile.

As for neon tetras, if they’re true Neons (or Cardinals–both have a red and a blue neon stripe on their body) those colours are 100% natural. The reason they don’t live long is because they are very finnicky about water quality, and aren’t forgiving if the water isn’t to their liking.

On the other hand, there is another kind of Neon fish, usually called Painted Glass Fish. These ones are see through, about the size of a quarter (in stores). In the wild, they are just clear, and live in brackish zones. In stores, they are usually sold in freshwater (so they get a lot of disease) after being injected along their spinal columns. It’s sick, plus it fades in about 4 weeks. On the other hand, if you are really into holidays, in recent years they started injecting them for various seasons(orange/black for Hallowe’en, red/green for Xmas, pastels for Easter). I hated those things–they were always getting sick.

What bothered me most was that these fish were so popular with people that other fish started getting the ink treatments–fruit loop/rasberry/blueberry tetras, bala sharks, rainbow sharks. When I was running the place, we stopped getting those fish in–most reputable dealers don’t carry those anymore. Genetically altered fish aren’t the same–no one stabbed them in the spine to add pretty colour.

But at least Matt can probably take care of the Parrots properly (although they do provide an wthical dilemna)..

Chestnuts roasted by Sean @ 01/22/2004 12:37 PM

Sean, check out the yellowish fish dead center in the pic above. That’s one of the "holiday" editions you mentioned — a Christmas Parrot. The dye’s almost completely gone, save for a few green traces.

I’ve read that the color fade is pretty common: kinda makes you wonder if these pet stores bank on early deaths for the fish.

Oh well, on the bright side, they’re all in a very clean 55 gallon tank with a brand new filter, so at least their future’ll be better than their past.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 01/22/2004 12:46 PM

Oh, and if you come back — about a year ago we had a catfish (sold as a shark because it looked very much like one). In retrospect, I think it might’ve been dyed. I’ve never seen one of the faux sharks looks SO sharklike: this one was very, very silver with a single black streak, but the tipoff is that it had the same misshapen head common in parrots. Though big (7 inches, pretty thick), I couldn’t help thinking it seemed a bit stunted. What’s your take?

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 01/22/2004 12:48 PM

Matt, you should buy more of these fish, because think of all the people who will put them in crappy tanks and just let them die unhappily. :( I think you’re a good pet owner from the kind of things you’ve said. Since they’re not expensive I think it would be a kind thing to buy as many as can comfortably live in the tank.

Chestnuts roasted by GJ @ 01/22/2004 2:51 AM

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2004 at 6:59 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.