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Should I get 3 small Piranhas or 1 big one for my 55 gallon?

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AlexWhit79

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I am getting a 3-4 inch Pacu tomorrow and I will be putting it in a 10 gallon with 2 other Firemouth Cichlids (small) and yes I know I need a way bigger tank but for now I will keep it in a 10 gallon until it gets about 6 inches then into my 20 gallon, but what other small fish or snails do you recommend I put in the tank?
 
They grow faster than you can imagine.
 
I would seriously urge you to rethink.

Neither firemouths or pacu should be in a ten gallon, even for a short period of time.

Keeping fish in tanks that are too small for them can cause all sorts of issues that will seriously affect the health and long term prospects of the fish. Stunting and physical deformities will be the most likely problems.

What are the dimensions of your tank, and what are the hardness and pH of your water?
 
Please return the Pacu. Depending upon species, they can reach more than 3 feet (90 cm) in length. They are not suitable to home aquaria unless you have a tank the size of a room.

A 20g is not suitable for a Firemouth. If this is all you plan in tanks, this fish is going to be unhealthy too.
 
I would seriously urge you to rethink.

Neither firemouths or pacu should be in a ten gallon, even for a short period of time.

Keeping fish in tanks that are too small for them can cause all sorts of issues that will seriously affect the health and long term prospects of the fish. Stunting and physical deformities will be the most likely problems.

What are the dimensions of your tank, and what are the hardness and pH of your water?
I know all of this and I have lots of more way bigger tanks going up to 2200 gal, but he would be eaten in a second if I put him in the big tanks so I want him to just grow with my tanks until he's ready to go with others. I don't have a testing kit for myself yet but I ran to a local fish store and Petco and they both tested ny water and says it's perfect for a Pacu.
 
Please return the Pacu. Depending upon species, they can reach more than 3 feet (90 cm) in length. They are not suitable to home aquaria unless you have a tank the size of a room.

A 20g is not suitable for a Firemouth. If this is all you plan in tanks, this fish is going to be unhealthy too.
Well I have a 800 and 2200 gallon tank but they are currently occupied and with the size of the Pacu at the moment, it would be eaten in an instant so I wanted to let it grow with my tanks and gradually give it more time to develop.
 
They grow faster than you can imagine.
Probably not, I've researched it a lot and I've asked Pacu breeders as well as friends of mine that have been in the aggressive fish business for over 20 years, etc. and I completely understand that red belly Pacu's can get up to 4 feet long, and I am prepared for his re-tanking along the way as we gets bigger, I have many tanks and my biggest is 2200 gal.
 
I'm not going to argue all this, but I forgot something earlier. Pacu are characins and thus shoaling fish, so they should be in a group, at least five or six. Nothing that has been mentioned here suggests you can provide an acceptable environment (which includes fish numbers), and without this the fish will not be healthy, that is a guarantee from any responsible ichthyologist you can ask.
 
I'm not going to argue all this, but I forgot something earlier. Pacu are characins and thus shoaling fish, so they should be in a group, at least five or six. Nothing that has been mentioned here suggests you can provide an acceptable environment (which includes fish numbers), and without this the fish will not be healthy, that is a guarantee from any responsible ichthyologist you can ask.
Well damn. Don't have enough room for that many, future wise. Anything other than Pacu that are also aggressive that you can recommend? I don't want Oscars or Cichlids I have about 15 years of experience with them and wanted to spice it up a bit.
 
I ran to a local fish store and Petco and they both tested ny water and says it's perfect for a Pacu.
Your petshop wouldn't know its elbow from its knee. Get the actual numbers,
 
I do agree with Nick. I doubt Petco sells pacus or has any experience with them.
 
Your petshop wouldn't know its elbow from its knee. Get the actual numbers,
I can't argue with that I'm not gonna tell you otherwise but I've asked someone who breeds pacus and he's never had any die or have any problems, he's the one that gave me the idea to put them in bigger tanks as they grow, and he said my setup is perfect as long as I feed them well and keep up with their diet (vegetables, meat, etc)
 
Young fish grow fast, a few weeks can make a huge difference in size.

 
I'm following this thread, and would like to make a couple of observations on something that has been hinted at. The video that Nick posted brought this to my notice.

The young pacu in the first half of that video is under significant stress. This is obvious from its behaviour. Being on its own without the shoal that it "expects" is the probable cause, though water parameters and other aspects of the environment can factor in and we don't know what those may be here. But the fish is clearly under stress, and this weakens a fish in several ways. First, it affects the immune system. Then it can affect the fish's development, both externally (size) and internally (organs). The aggressiveness (both increasing or decreasing from the norm) is almost always impacted. And the fish will not live to its normal expected lifespan. All this is a biological fact.

Since the discovery of DNA in the 1970's, ichthyologists have learned much about fish that was perhaps assumed but certainly not confirmed previously. The green citation from Dr. Paul Loiselle, a leading authority on cichlids, in my signature block is what I am referring to; fish "expect" many things because evolution has programmed these expectations into the DNA of each species. When any one of the "expectations" is not present, it causes stress. We now know that like all animals, stress impacts a fish significantly. I alluded to some of this above. What is now certain is that the homeostasis is impacted by all environmental factors when these are outside the norm for the species.

Homeostasis is defined as “the tendency of an organism or a cell to regulate its internal conditions, usually by a system of feedback controls, so as to stabilize health and functioning, regardless of the outside changing conditions.” Physiological homeostasis, or physical equilibrium, is the internal process animals use to maintain their health and life: “the complex chain of internal chemical reactions that keep the pH of its blood steady, its tissues fed, and the immune system functioning” (Muha, 2006).

Here is how Biology Online defines stress: The sum of the biological reactions to any adverse stimulus—physical, mental or emotional, internal or external—that tends to disturb the organisms homeostasis; should these compensating reactions be inadequate or inappropriate, they may lead to disorders.

Few scientific studies have been done on all this in the past, but those that are now being undertaken have confirmed what many have always assumed but been unable to document. As one example, a study on the size of the group for shoaling species proved that with less than five in the group, fish like angelfish and black neon tetras (these were two species studied) became much more aggressive; naturally aggressive species (like the angelfish) showed significant increase in the aggressive behaviours, while normally peaceful species (like the tetras) became aggressive.

The point of all this is that we cannot change nature (you would think with all the environmental destruction and climate change today we would begin to understand this fact). If we want healthy fish, we must understand their needs and provide them, reasonably closely. It is, as Dr. Loiselle says, inhumane to do otherwise. The pacu from that video has obviously managed to "live," but at what cost? Nathan Hills' comment in blue in my signature block says it; a fish surviving is not the same as a fish thriving, and the latter should be our constant goal. The fish cannot tell us verbally how it feels about what we force upon it, so common sense dictates that we should take the advice of ichthyologists and biologists and provide what the fish "expects," learning this from its habitat.
 

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