Please help me identify this fish

[Tylerrrrr45]

I recently got these fish being told they are silver dollars I have asked around and had so many different answers (pacu, red belly piranha and silver dollar) any idea I can’t put them in my tank if they are pacu or piranha

 

[enricosonic]

They look like classic silver dollars to me, with a little fin damage.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

I recently got these fish being told they are silver dollars I have asked around and had so many different answers (pacu, red belly piranha and silver dollar) any idea I can’t put them in my tank if they are pacu or piranha

Agree with @enricosonic. The body isn’t long enough and the coloration is wrong to be a RBP. Definitely not a Pacu either, again, body shape is off.

A text book Silver Dollar here.

 

[Wills]

I agree a Silver Dollar but not sure they are the common species. Did you get a name in the shop? The tail being red is interesting and common Silver Dollars are really silver metallic but these have a bit of colour and pattern to the side.

Wills

 

[Byron]

I'm not especially up on this group of characins, but this fish is possibly Metynnis argenteus. This species seems to have a red border to the caudal fin, and red in the other fins. Being a characin, it must have a good-sized group, 8-9 being minimum, in a sufficiently spaced tank. It may eat plants. If you only have two, they will be seriously stressed and likely to get aggressive to other fish as well as themselves.

 

[itiwhetu]

Silver Dollars Metynnis argenteus as @Byron says. Keep them by themselves they will chew through the plant like no tomorrow.

Silver dollars and their young

So you have a better idea of who I am I thought I would share this with you. After breeding fish for many years commercially I decided that the true test of a community system (furnished aquarium) was if the fish would breed and raise their young. This silver dollar picture shows the parents and...

www.fishforums.net

 

[FranciscoB]

Those are very nice fish, their fins a little bit tattered but very nice and showing good color even while being in the plastic bag. If you were able to offer good conditions in your tank, they may be looking spectacular by now!

...."Silver Dollars Metynnis argenteus as @Byron says. Keep them by themselves they will chew through the plant like no tomorrow."...

They are NOT Metynnis argenteus, but two male Metynnis altidorsalis, a common and very nice species.
The photos below show a single adult from my group, and the coloration when happy (however photos are not of great quality).

Notice that M. altidorsalis is NOT a "spotted silver dollar" (like M. lippincotianus and M. maculatus, the most common spotted dollars). M. altidorsalis has blotches of color instead of regular-sized spots. The blotches don't show all the time and instead, only the background color is seen with probably only the two large humeral black spots (2 huge blotches, one above and one below the lateral line), but even these are not shown all the time. Also, when in good conditions (~happy), M. altidorsalis is usually not of a silver background color, more like a bronze or golden color.
In contrast, M. argenteus is not a spotted dollar and does not have blotches of dark color, other than humeral spots (when showing, which again, is not all the time).

Could you show photos of your fish as they look now?? That would be awesome! and hopefully would help all of us learn to recognize similar-looking, but different Metynnis silver dollar species. Cheers!