My 17 year old daughter just traded her Africans at the LFS for 2 medium (3-4") sized Red Belly Piranha- her boyfriend talked her into it. I have been reading about them and have read some conflicting information. They have been eating pellets and live fish but are a little beat up from over crowding.

I have a freezer full of older fish fillets (salmon, halibut, shrimp etc). She is thinking of feeding them pellets and raw fish chunks. Weekly water changes. She wants to keep tha tank minimally decorated but I am reading they like large plants and bogwood. Any advice? I dosed them with Pimafix and Melafix since the fins are chewed.

Thanks- Juie

i am a keeper of the red belly pacu. unfortunatly the big this about them is they WILL out grow the tanks fast. these guys are supposed to be veggitarians but mine eat fish as well. they are far from picky to be honest. will eat just about anything you give them, mine are about 8 pounds. they are also known as tank busters. they will get spooked easy and hit the glass with one hell of a thud. they are great fish though. pellet food will work fine for them as well as fish chunks. try slices of cucumber but be careful what you do feed them because they do eat stuff like oranges but those type of food will cloud your tanks and polute it the hell outta it.

if you have any more questions feel free to ask. hope this helped ya

Their real name is Red Belly Pacu, people call it "Piranha" cuz of their are similar to them, you dont wanna have a real piranha in your tank lol

Why should she not keep Red Belly Piranhas? Piranhas are not pacus. Yes both are Charicins from the tetra family.

She should keep them for the time being but the pacu get up to 60 pounds and grow to 6 feet in length. They are fun fish though. I pet mine and they lay sideways flip thier fins around like a dog. Quite humorous. Lol

http://www.fishlore.com/Profiles-Piranha.htm

I don't think they are Pacu's. They had Pacu's in another tank. They had 3 tanks of Piranha- Large, Med, & Small.

When we were putting these guys into the tank one of them attached the net. They are skittish but they are like fear biting dogs.

Last night they shredded some chunked fish.

Julie

Dont feed them coldwater fish, too high in fat. Shrimp and tillapia are good treats.

Hikari carnivore delight is a good food for carnivores, pricey but good.
New life spectrum is a good staple food for any fish.

Yes get a few more, they do best in groups.

Thanks Fern.

She has the pellets but I don't know if she tried to feed them pellets yet. We just wanted to make sure they were not too stressed to eat after moving them yesterday.

Julie

They look a whole lot like pacu but your very right. They are not pacu. Seem like cool fish though! I enjoy aggressive fish. I have quite an Oscar collection. And watching them feed now lol. Enjoy!

Blood worms and frozen silversides are good foods too.
But keep them mostly on pellets, if you spoil them too much with treats you may have issues getting them to eat pellets, same as just about any fish.

They wont take the pellets we have (we were told they would eat anything including pellets). We will try soaking them in something stinky for a few meals and see where it goes.

They are very skitish so it makes it hard to feed them when you walk up to the tank they scatter. My daughter needs to put in some things to help them hide. She is looking for a large long piece of driftwood and some floating plants- maybe a different light.

Thanks- Julie