I was reading about tropical fish one day and I came across a freshwater barracuda. Has anyone heard of this, and do they know if it would be good for a 30 gallon aquarium?

One of my lfs had some fish in which were labled as freshwater baracuda,but to my knowledge were actually Acestrorhynchus falcirostris common name Amazon dog characin.If this is the fish your talking about my advice is HANDS OFF! I stupidly bought one and had to take it back within a fortnight,it was by far the most aggressive fish i have ever kept,it was in a tank on its own but tried to attack anything that passed the glass,let alone my hand when removing uneaten food,as they refuse point blank to eat any thing but live fish.

They are awesome fish and do great in schools, however a 30 gallon is not enough. They get up to 10" or so and are very fast swimmers and nead lots of swim area. Length of the tank will be much more important than depth as they are top swimmers. A 75 gallon would do well for a school of 3 or 4. It is true that they are aggressive, but at the same time very wimpy. They can not be kept with other aggressive fish as the cudas will get beat up easily. They are also very hard to ween off live food, though if you get them young enough, it can be done.

most barracudas can reach 2 feet long and are not really rec. for smaller tank sizes.

We touched on this several weeks ago, I'll see if I can find the link....

Barracudas

This has links as well

FW cudas are listed as getting 12", but often get no bigger than 8-10".

there is a freshwater barracuda scientific name belonesox belizanus. it comes from the atlantic coast from veracruz mexico to nicaragua. it is an ambush predator. it is monotypic, the only species belonging to the genus belosenex. it is exclusively piscivorous eating nothing but fish. it is a livebearer with an average brood of 100 but get get into the range of 300. the largest ever recorded being 354. beleive it or not they are rather docile. they will let smaller fish swim around them and even school with them til they are hungry. they are completely docile with anything that cannot fit in their mouths. they are closely related to the mosquito fish and are fin nippers.

http://www.gsmfc.org/nis/nis/Belonesox_belizanus.html

maggie

That isnt even a fw baracuda that is a top water minnow pike, ill get a pic of a true fw baracuda and teh name.

Your a braver man than me Dan!

to reply, fw barracuda's bred in tanks lengths up to 10". wild caught ones up to 28".

http://pictures.care2.com/view/2/202540291
http://pictures.care2.com/view/2/272099113

Acestrorhynchus Grandoculis commonly sold as FW barracuda. Acestrorhynchus falcatus Is also very common.