Pirranahs

[atmmachine816]

ok Thanks CFC

my friend might be getting a red bellied pirhana and i am helping him research but do they perfer sand or gravel thats what i cant find right now

 

[CFC]

No, they are Characins

 

[atmmachine816]

does anyboyd know if they like plants to or do the like rocks

 

[emma12321]

Hi,

Is your friend only getting one? They are a shoaling fish and should be kept in groups of 6+ to reduce aggression. Sand or gravel is fine, i personally would go with sand as the leftover food will be easily visible on the surface to be removed. Vallis is a good plant to use a they can swim through it and so it won't be up rooted, Your friend would be best joining a piranha forum for expert advice, there are quite a few out there just google for them.

Emma

 

[dwarfgourami]

I expect I'm pointing out the obvious here- but I hope your friend has a BIG tank and massive filtration; piranhas are great big messy things. All that meat has got to come out in the end!

 

[pieman]

I havn't read much about pirranahs, but you know for cleaning the tank... you don't hold the gravel vac by hand unless you want to loose an arm do you?

 

[atmmachine816]

he has a 40 gallon long tank with a penguin 200 bio-wheel 2 powerheads and a submarine that puts out air bubles and he is getting another penguin 200 or 330 or sponge filters this summer but he decided to get two red bellied pirhanas even though i told him not to and he has 10 guppies in the tank to keep aggresion down and will keep guppies in there but he is going to try to train them to not eat a lot of live food and train them that his hand is not food

 

[dwarfgourami]

he has a 40 gallon long tank with a penguin 200 bio-wheel 2 powerheads and a submarine that puts out air bubles and he is getting another penguin 200 or 330 or sponge filters this summer but he decided to get two red bellied pirhanas even though i told him not to and he has 10 guppies in the tank to keep aggresion down and will keep guppies in there but he is going to try to train them to not eat a lot of live food and train them that his hand is not food

How do you train a piranha? I get this wonderful visual image of a class of fishkeepers all lined up with their little red-bellies on a lead to teach them to jump through hoops.

No, but seriously, does your friend know how big these fellows grow? I saw some in the Bournemouth aquarium the other day and they were easily as big as my son's head. My book says 12 inches and suggests a 300 gallon tank (which is possibly a little exaggerated). I have no personal experience of keeping piranhas, in pairs of otherwise, but experience from other schooling fish suggests that if you keep 2 in a confined space like that they will either tear each other to bits or just get really depressed.

Of course, anyone with real experience- do feel free to contradict!

But I think you were wise to advise against this.

 

[Alex_]

You cant train piranha's. and also were do you live?

are you sure there legal?

and yes you need to keep at least 6

and need 20 gallons a fish at least with high filteration

 

[*Lucifer*]

i have six of the lil beauties, we have them in a 100 gallon tank with 2 bits of mangrove root at each end. and yes they make alot of mess, filteration and cleaning is the main thing which keeps them happy and of course food lol. we have to water change once maybe twice a week depends on what they are being fed!

they def need to be kept in a grouo, we went to our lfs last weekend and they had 3 in a tank the size of a small box and they were slowly killing eachother. it was horrible to watch!!!!

you definatley can not train a pirahna, if they want ur hand when it goes into their tank they will have it, my other half has been bitted 3 times by them whilst trying to clean their home, at first they all get nervous and very skittish and will fly around a mangrove root then they strike, and its very quick and nasty its like being sliced with a razor blade apparently, so the other half says lol lol

but i will say one thing i would never swap them for anything they are great fishies to have they have so much character and u never know what they will do next.

Lucifer

 

[cane76]

lol if i was your other half i would wear gloves

 

[AMS]

When I clean my piranha tanks I go straight in for it, they just hide around the densley planted area until the coast is clear. Then to clear the areas that they are hding in I just swing a large net around there to push em out. Despite their reputation, mostly all piranhas are skittish to some degree. Even the "finger chasers'' will get skittish sometimes.

 

[*Lucifer*]

cane 76, hes learnt now, they had a good clean at the weekend and the wimps just hid under a mangrove root.

i do have one question, how do u sex them? the reason i ask is because a couple of our look like they're gettin a lil bellie on them and was wondering if any one knew how how and what the difference is?

Lucifer xx