Piranha's and Mollie's Interesting Article.

Somewhere a man claims he has Mollies living and breeding within his tank.

He estimates between 3-4 Mollies are taken per month.

But within that time 3-4 Mollies are born.

Creating a perfect Harmony between Piranha and Mollies.

I am only interested as being a Piranha owner I love to learn about there behavour.

So this articles has spawned some questions.

1. Wouldn't a Piranha just over eat and become sick?
2. Aren't Mollies slow (feeder fish) sized fish?
3. Do Mollies even school to have some sort of success against a well adapted pred like Piranhas?
4. Surely the even slower fat pregg'd Mollies would become a bigger target breaking this Harmony?

Interesting Article.

Link? I cant' imagine it would work unless there was a very small piranha population, a very large molly population, and a very large tank. And a piranha (even the smaller serrasalmus species) will eat much more than 4 mollys a month.

I agree with Mr Fishy,
Unless that guy has some evidence.
I doubt it, but if it was it would be incredible!

All I could think of is if the piranha are really well fed babies and the mollies are huge. But eventually the mollies would get eaten. Mollies also produce dozens if not hundreds of young in each batch so if he is only getting 4 per month then the rest are being eaten or he is not telling the truth.
I had a couple in with a school of young black fin pacu, and they all lived with some rainbowfish. The rainbows were bigger than the pacu & piranha (p&p) but as the p&p got bigger the piranha started to hunt and kill the rainbows. It didn't happen often because they were really well fed but about once a week I would lose a rainbow. The pacu would eat the rainbows too but only once the piranha had done the damage, then it became a free for all and everyone joined in.

Exactly pretty much what I thought...

It would come down to

Mollies Breeding Vs. Piranha Hunger.

Mollies would breed a large amount but then Mollies will also eat there own ... so it sounds very unsuccessful.

I couldn't find the article I am at home at the moment so not in my browser history.

BUT I forgot to mention the trick was a fort that only the mollies could get into.

Yeah well then that might work. Basically having two enclosures, one with the mollies in and the other with the piranha. Then the surplus mollies would flow out and get eaten and the rest would be hiding from the teeth on the other side. I couldn’t think of a worse torment for a fish. The piranhas watching their dinner swimming around on the other side of an invisible barrier and not being able to get them, or the mollies hiding and hoping the piranha would go away and not come back.
Quickly we must sacrifice our children to the piranha gods so they remain pleased with us and don’t bring doom on our society All hail the piranha gods.

sounds like a big load of nonsense to me

I think so ...

i agree with Colin,
that way is do-able.
Unlikely, but do-able.

In a big enough tank it would be possible. In my local aquarium their red belly P display tank has hundreds of ameca splendens, some dwarfish(keyholes or something)cichlids and black skirt tetras. They say the odd livebearer gets eaten but for the most part they totally ignore them.

Agreed /\ /\ /\...Ive seen a huge display tank with a shoal of around 30+ RBP, in which there were countless smaller fish such as tetra etc, no problem.

ah but have you seen the tank since? How often do they replace the smaller fishes in the tank with the red bellies?

Id imagine never, 15" RBP in a tank probably around 3/4000g that are fed well wont bother with little tetra

They won't show as much interest in it but somewhere along the line it will decide to eat one or two. But I suppose if you had one red belly and one tetra in a 4000g tank the tetra and piranha wouldn't really see much of each other. And red bellies don't grow to 15", more like 8-12".

Edited for typos

This post has been edited by Mr._Fishy: Jun 25 2008, 06:50 PM

Read the fact file mate, up to 18" in the wild so if kepts in a 4000g tank its whole life, very easy to get to 15" ...Tbh, was a huge shoal and incredibly dull, they barely even moved let alone chased little fish.

*Edit*

Very short clip of the tank in question, doesnt justify size.

RBP London Aquarium

This post has been edited by SJ2K: Jun 25 2008, 05:40 PM

Heres a vid of the tank I was talking about too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n00o3al50o

I hate to be argumentative, but have you actually seen with your own eyes (not by word of mouth) a P. nattereri that is 15" or more in home aquaria? I haven't. Here is a quote from fishbase: "Max. size: 33.3 cm SL". Since it is SL, we can tack another couple inches onto that, bringing the TL to around 38 cm or about 15". This is maximum recorded size in the wild, not captivity. And you can't expect all fish to reach that size either (genetics, disease, and food supply all come into play). As with many larger predatory fish, red bellies seldom reach their maximum size in the wild in captivity. Red bellys over 12" are pretty rare. I have yet to see one hit 15". Theoretically, yes, you MAY get a 15" red belly in a very large tank if you take very good care of it (pristine water quality, abundant food, little stress). But practically speaking, it probably won't happen.

Ive seen these fish with my own eyes yes, granted I didnt have a ruler and sedated specimen to hand so i cant guarante the size, if it makes you happy ill say a size 12"+ Biiig fish, as the video shows, very dosile, completly ignoring all the dither fish.

This post has been edited by SJ2K: Jun 25 2008, 07:43 PM

Oh, okay. 12"+ is a reasonable size. I was more talking about getting a 15" in a regular aquarium, not a public one.

PS. I love your little "THIS...IS...TFF!!" thing!

This post has been edited by Mr._Fishy: Jun 25 2008, 07:49 PM