Parrotfish

1 Species Overview

The parrotfish is a well-known ornamental fish, named for its bright colors and a mouth shape that resembles a parrot’s beak. Note: this is the marine parrotfish (family Scaridae), which is a different animal from the ‘blood parrot’—a freshwater cichlid hybrid (red devil × redhead cichlid) also kept in aquaria. The two are often confused in Chinese sources.

Chinese name: Parrotfish (鹦鹉鱼)

Latin name: family Scaridae (the source lists the cichlid genus Amphilophus, which is incorrect for true parrotfish).

Other name: 鹦嘴鱼 (parrotfish)

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Subphylum: Vertebrata

Order: Perciformes

Family: Scaridae (parrotfish family)

English name: Parrotfish (the source mislabels it ‘Blood parrot’, which is a separate cichlid hybrid).

2 Appearance

The parrotfish gets its name from its beak-like mouth. Adults can reach 1.2 m in length and 20 kg in weight. In the wild it is a tropical fish living among coral reefs, so water temperature must be watched in captivity.

The parrotfish is famous for parrot-like brilliant colors, and its body color varies. Within a species the sexes differ greatly, and adults differ greatly from juveniles. In the Indo-Pacific the main parrotfish include the striped parrotfish (Callyodon fasciatus), 46 cm (18 in) long; males are green-orange or green-red, females blue with yellow. The Atlantic species include the queen parrotfish (Scarus vetula), about 50 cm long; males are blue with green, red and orange, while females are pale red or purple with a white stripe.

3 Tank & Habitat

The most common problem in keeping parrotfish is that they start turning pale, their original vivid color fading. This is closely tied to water quality and the feed used. So how do you set up a suitable water environment for them?

Parrotfish like weakly acidic, low-hardness soft water. They tolerate temperature fairly well and live freely at 20–30 °C, but they are also quite temperature-sensitive; in low temperature or with abrupt swings they easily become stressed, losing their vivid sheen and even developing black stripes or patches. During keeping, hold the temperature at 25–28 °C and keep the difference before and after each water change within 0.5 °C.

Because the parrotfish’s lips cannot close completely, its control of water flow is poor and the flow over the gills is small, so its ability to exchange oxygen via gill water flow is much weaker than other fish. Therefore the water it is kept in must be well oxygenated.

The parrotfish ‘weaves its own pajamas’: like a silkworm spinning a cocoon, it spits white threads from its mouth and, with help from its pelvic and caudal fins, weaves a complete shell over one or two hours—that is its pajamas. Sometimes the pajamas are woven too hard; when it wakes in the morning it cannot bite them open and suffocates inside.

4 Feeding

In captivity, feeding color-enhancing pellets is very important to effectively prevent fading. Some parrotfish are shy and may stop eating, which takes patient training. Never feed small river fish—perhaps their color triggers a throwback gene, because once you feed river fish the parrotfish color will definitely fade. The blood parrot, when fed small fish, can also overeat to the point of bursting, since it is greedy and doesn’t know when to stop.