Cats and dogs have the advantage over marine pets in that they can interact with humans through the sense of touch.

But that doesn’t prevent one man from dipping his hand in the fish tank and giving his blood parrot cichlid a stroke.

Capturing his remarkable relationship on camera, Roland Giroux gently cups the fish with his hand from within side the tank and then treats it to a massage.

The fish begins relaxing in the man's hand and stays very still as the owner begins to stroke it with his finger

The fish initially moves away before swimming in a full circle and returning to rest in between the man’s fingers.

The man then begins massaging the pet by running his finger along it and the fish stays completely still as if enjoying the sensation.

Repeating the process, the fish swims off once more before immediately returning to the man’s hand to be stroked again.

Later in the video the fish interacts further with the man by swimming up his arm and circling his fingers.

The man places his hand into the tank and gently cups the blood parrot cichlid with his fingers

Before burying its face into his hand and remaining very still once more.

The video concludes with the man removing his hand from the tank and the fish, clearly saddened by this, following it up to the surface of the water.

According to Mr Giroux, who uploads many videos of his fish to his Youtube channel, the blood parrot cichlid used to share its tank with two other fish.

The fish swims away from the man's hand a few times in the video but returns to be massaged

But he was forced to remove the other two from the tank when he noticed that they were bullying his prized pet.

He then set about interacting with the fish by feeding it frozen blood worms by hand and eventually he noticed it becoming more sociable.

After a while the fish enjoyed being stroked and Mr Giroux noted that it would become frustrated if he didn’t play with it on a daily basis.

The fish begins swimming around the man's fingers and towards the surface as he removes his hand

The man massages and plays with his fish for at least 15 minutes each day.