Regardless of people =opinions= on blood parrots or other hybrid fish, here's the scoop:
Blood parrots, as juviniles, are greenish-black in color, turning to red as they mature. Your fish is probably =not= a dyed specimen unless it is the unnatural colors of pink, purple, pastle blue, peachy coral orange, vivid pastle red, a deep blue, a pastel green, or anything else they have lately come up with. When the blood parrot matures, it goes through several nature color stages, the green-black tigerstripe stage, a yellow stage, an orange stage, and finally over to full red.
The rate of maturity, thus the rate it turns the natural blood red color, depends upon four things; 1) the health of the fish, 2) the size of its tank, 3) the quality of the water, 4) where the fish falls in the pecking-order of the tank.
1) If your blood parrot is eating regularlly and swimming normally, ususally it is safe to assume the fish is in good health. A fish that is fin-clamped, hiding all the time, has white specks or black specks on it, has shredded fins, or is showing other damage is not considered healthy. These can be caused by improper water quality or other fish beating the heck out of it, or parasites. A blood parrot that just does not look healthy should be medically treated in a Q-tank.
2) Your tank is =WAY TOO SMALL= to house that many cichlids, much less to house them when they are all full grown. As well, you have mixed African cichlids, with docile community fish, with South American cichlids, and it seems to be slightly over-populated. Because your community is a little confused, so probably too is your blood parrot. Blood parrots, when full grown, can be the size of soft-balls. While most aquarist will tell you that tank size and population pressure does not matter to a fish's growth rate, the truth is it most certainly does!! With that much population pressure in that small a tank, your blood parrot will not reach his full growth size, and will take longer to go through the maturity process to red. Most likely, the long lived fish will either beat the crap out of the more docile ones when it gets to feeling too cramped, or it will die from stunting and bad water quality. It is usually accpeted that one full grown pair of blood parrots would need a 55 gallon tank to themselves. Please, your fish may appeare small now as juviniles, but if you intend to cherish them for many more years to come, start planning and saving for at least 90 gallons in the future.
3) Blood parrots are sensitive to water quality. When the water is not optimal for them, many of them will display black on the tips of their fins, or black mottling on the body. This is a matte black different from the green-black stripes of youth. The best way to color up a blood parrot like this is to make sure they always have fresh water in the form of frequent small volume water changes. I would recommend 30% change once a week on your tank. You'll probably need to increase it to twice a week as your fish get larger.
4) Blood parrots that are lower down on the hierarchy of the fish pecking order take much longer to color up than fish that are more dominate than they are. I've worked in an LFS where we'd get ten juviniles in at a time. You could tell the more dominate fish by how fast they colored-up. Fish removed from the group tank and placed in their own tanks colored up much faster as their confidance in their dominace increased. Your firemouth, or your agassizii may be bullies, causing your blood parrot to want to hide and stay out of their way, thus making him want to be dull, unnoticeable colors so as not to attract their attention. This will also have an affect on his shy behavior and hesitation to greet you at meal times.
Blood parrots do have wonderful little personallities, and are IMO great fish dispite whatever their deformities are. Hell, goldfish have the same damn deformities, yet nobody gets up on a soap-box about them. Regardless, remember you've only had your blood parrot for a month, and a months time for a fish that can live around twenty years is not a whole heck of a lot in the way of getting personal with the aquarist. The best thing you could do for your blood parrot is get him his own tank, perhaps with another blood parrot buddy, and then you will see him flourish.
Soulfish = You have stated your opinion on hybrid fish quite frequently on this site. But the soapbox at this point is not helpful to people seeking advice. If you cannot be impartial about helping other people, at least don't berate them for doing things you may not necessarily agree with. How would you like it if someone called you a "mutant freak"?
~~Colesea