Questions About Egg Laying Fish - Blood Parrots

About 98% or higher of male BP's are sterile, so you most likely won't have any fry to worry about. That's their mating dance they're doing. I remember one of mine doing sommersaults in the tank, they're a riot to watch when they do that. The female will develop a lon, thick white egg tube, and the male's thingy whatever it's called will be considerably smaller and curved a bit, that's how you'll be able to tell the difference. The eggs will be kind of a tan color, and when they turn white, they're fungused/no good. Leave them for a few days, and she'll most likely take care of them. If she doesn't after about a week of them being fungused, you'll need to remove them. Mine always laid her eggs in this little tree cave thing I have, I had to get a flashlight to shine in to see them. A good forum for blood parrots is this site: http://www.bloodparrots.co.uk/forum/ They're real friendly, and lots of info on there just to read through.

I hate to break it to you, but blood parrots are a sterile hybrid, sort of like mules. They're trying to mate but will never produce viable eggs. Removing eggs or fry is a toss-up. With some species of egg-depositing cichlids it's best to let natural parenting take over. Angelfish breeders who have problems with parents stressing out and eating the whole brood, however, will remove the slate slab, eggs and all, and hatch it in a jar with strong aeration and methylene blue in the water. What to look for and what to do ultimately depends on the species in question.

It's possible, it has happened where they've had success with the eggs hatching. When there's eggs, you'll see the female will stay in one area, she probably won't eat for a few days because she won't leave the eggs alone. It's been awhile, but I think the male eventually leaves, doesn't stick around that area. She'll guard the area and chase off any other fish that come near it. You'll have to look real close, and you'll just see a bunch of tannish or eventually white(fungus) little balls laying around where she's "defending". You can see them, like I said, mine always did it in their tree cave, so I needed a flashlight to look inside because it was dark. I've read on that forum I posted, some people think the breeders overseas gave the males a chemical to make them sterile, so they won't breed and the people can get all the money for selling the BP's. Just speculation, but it makes sense since so many of the males are sterile. They figure the few that aren't sterile that we buy, we're just "escapees" so to say :)