Red Belly Piranha?

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

sumlove1 wrote:

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

piranhas not pacus.
they are best kept in groups of odd numbers.
i got a picture of the tank at sea world. i will post it on here to morrow

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

What kind of pellets are they?

Look at their mouth, that will tell you if they want floating or sinking pellets. If the mouth is oriented up they want floating. If the mouth is oriented down they want sinking.

Ok, stop. You have Piranha, no pellets unless they were brought up on them. No soaking them in "stinky", try shrimp from frozen section at grocery store. Thaw them in warm water.They will probably not eat for up to two weeks if they are new for you, give it some time, you can't force feed them. Piranha are very skittish, hiding spots are good for them. They are a hard fish to get use to, but great once they have a chance to adjust to their new home. And yes always keep more than two in a tank, does not have to be an odd number. Hope I helped you Julie.

Double check the local laws on keeping piranha
STATES PROHIBIT THE KEEPING OF PIRANHAS. MAKE SURE TO FOLLOW ALL YOUR STATE AND LOCAL LAWS BEFORE PURCHASING PIRANHAS.
IT IS ILLEGAL TO OWN PIRANHAS IN THE FOLLOWING STATES:
ALABAMA
ALASKA
ARIZONA
ARKANSAS
CALIFORNIA
COLORADO
CONNECTICUT
FLORIDA
GEORGIA
HAWAII
KENTUCKY
LOUISIANA
MAINE
MASSACHUSETTS
MISSISSIPPI
NEVADA
NEW MEXICO
NEW YORK
NORTH CAROLINA
OKLAHOMA
SOUTH CAROLINA
TEXAS
UTAH
VIRGINIA
WASHINGTON
IT IS ILLEGAL TO OWN PIRANHAS IN THE FOLLOWING COUNTRIES:*

AUSTRALIA
GERMANY
INDONESIA
MAINLAND CHINA
MALAYSIA
MEXICO
PHILIPPINES
THAILAND
VIETNAM
*INCOMPLETE

get a picture of them i want to see them.
feed them frozen beef heart cubes from petsmart.

I wondered if it was illegal to own one here in VA, now i know, thanks for the info

Piranahs are doing great. Still skitish but not as bad. The fins that were damaged are much better. Their color looks great.

She is feeding them 1x per day and they are eating all the food (frozen beef heart, blood worms, shrimp, raw fish etc). I think this weekend she will try feeding them 2x and then start mixing it up. We want to try some small guppy fish and ghost shrimp as food an occational food source. I also wanted to try some snails. Now that the puffers have been gone I have a lot of them.

Also I did look up on my State law and piranhas were not listed as illegal and the lfs said they were not. I found a lot of mixed information on the web some sites said they were, some were not.

With any luck I will actually post some pictures soon.

I have had red bellies since December, I started out with 7 and now have 6. The only thing about piranha is that they will weed out the weak as kind of a fight or flight stratigie. So if your two grew up together you will be fine. However, if you bought them and they were in seperate tanks, you might have some problems with them trying to kill each other. I have fed my piranha everything from raw hamburger meat, raw steak, fresh fish fillets, gold fish, koi, ghost shrip when they were tiny, beefhear, blood worms, squid, and i'm sure much more. They of course LOVE the raw meat but I don't give it to them as often. Piranha do love to hide out, so it is best to have somewhere they can hide other wise they get really nervous and spook everytime you walk by and hit the glass. If they do that too much they will develop a type of keyloid below their mouths, which will look bad. Get used to them munching on each other's fins, its just a piranha thing but if your two look like they are fighting to the death, you might want to seperate them. I have heard that a general ratio of piranha to water is one piranha to 20 gallons. I have my 6 in a 55, but in time will have to upgrade to a 120+, but hoping that will be at least a year away! They are about 3 inches now, in what I refer them as the 3rd stage of coloring. Sill have their juvinille poka-dots, but now are getting the adult coloring with the orange bellies. I love them and I am looking into gettin a more agressive piranha for another 55 gallon that one of my friends has given to me.