Blue Parrotfish

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The Blue Parrotfish, Scarus coeruleus, is a species found in the warm tropical and subtropical regions of the western Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. The name “Scarus coeruleus” is derived from Latin, meaning “blue fish,” aptly describing its vivid hue. It is one of the nearly sixty species that adorn reef waters, distinguished as the second-largest Caribbean parrotfish, with a significant population in the southern Gulf of Mexico. The Blue Parrotfish’s habitat spans from northern South America to Maryland in the USA.

A celebrated resident of the Florida Keys and southern Florida, the Blue Parrotfish is also indigenous to Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Haiti. It favors the bustling ecosystems of coral reefs and flourishes in shallow coastal waters, commonly found at depths reaching 80 feet.

The Blue Parrotfish’s diet is primarily algae-based, which they extract from coral chunks in their natural reef habitats. They use the teeth in their throats to scrape off algae polyps from the coral, spending about 90% of their day feeding on algae overgrowth on coral. Additionally, they consume small benthic invertebrates found in the sand and occasionally small crustaceans. Their habit of grinding rocks and sand in search of food makes them notably noisy eaters.

In captivity, replicating their natural diet of algae from ocean rocks and coral can be challenging. Ensuring the right lighting setup is crucial for growing plants and rock algae. Due to the potential unreliability of naturally grown food, finding a suitable alternative algae-based food source is important. While they predominantly eat plants, they can also be fed small crustaceans occasionally. Frozen brine shrimp and krill are known to be acceptable food options for them in an aquarium setting.