WAHHH!!!!

[Bradley]

In september of last year, i bought myself a 78 gallon bow-front tank. Last wednesday, it was a MIRACLE! I fed the fish, and right then and there, my new tank just started to leak for no reason. We ended up spending the next 2 hours draining it, catching all the fish, moving them, THE WORKS! Unfortunalty, one of my many marble molly fry tried to escape and got squished by the net

The worst part: other than that tank, i have a 28 gallon tank with my piranha in it, so the fish couldnt go in there (there are approximatly 50), and i have a 10gallon tank for goldfish, which was not big enough... so to make room...... i had to give my piranha away to the pet store!!!!!

Now i have the fish cramped in there. I got the tank replaced, but we are going away over march break, so we are not setting it up ntil we get back,. so until then it will have to do. Now i have to wait like 3 weeks before i can put the fish back in their tank, and it isnt ntil then that i can get new piranhas (i'm thinking about getting 6, which will have the 28 gallon tank until they are too big, then they will go to the big tank). Now i found out, my parents dont like the idea of piranhas, so they dont want me getting them The thing they dont understand is that i love them for their looks and social behaviour. oh well, does anyone have any advice?

 

[guppygirly]

Personally I think pacus look like pirhanas. Maybe get those instead. Sorry thats all the advice I can give. Anyone else?

 

[petitericeball]

like 2 days ago i went to petsmart and when i saw pacus i was thinking the same thing and was thinking pacus are related to piranas

 

[silver]

Pacus are not a good idea unless you want to get a 500 gallon tank, which it doesn't sound like your parents would like THAT much either

They get ENORMOUS!!!

Check out this link.....
http/www.aquariumfish.net/catalog_pages/...s/wild/pacu.htm


Silver

 

[Bradley]

lol, thanks for the advice, i'll look into those pacus

 

[Olive]

sorry to hear your troubles...........I will keep you in my fishy prayers!

 

[noelberg]

I personally think that black tetras look a little bit like piranhas (being from the same family and all), so maybe if you put some black tetras in the community tank then got piranhas for the other tank and tell your parents they're like the ones in the community tank.

 

[snowyangel]

I agree with the pacu comment. They grow big and fast. My cousin bought one at a cute 3inches, decided to put it in her 10 g, then she had to buy a 50 gallon and by this time the darn thing was around 9 inches, then she started seeing fish "missing" from what the pet store called a "veggie eater only fish", then she had to finally donate it to a guy intown who has a huge tank with oscars. I guess it gets along with them, but you should've seen my cousin trying to scoop this huge meat eater out of her tank..... water everywhere

 

[LoveMyOscar]

...

 

[guppygirly]

I was wondering how big those got! My husband wants pirhanas, but I don't want them around my babies. I got 3 whiteskirt tetras and told him if he looked real hard he could see their teeth. I definately retract my former statement about getting pacus...who has that kind of room in their house?!??

 

[Sorrell]

The red belly pacus don't get near as big as the black pacus (if my eyes don't decieve me the ones in the pictures are black pacus) My husband has been a long time fan of pacus and we've had quite a few. We had a 450 gallon tank (that unfortunately cracked) and we had three pacus all of whom were very peaceful. We even had one incident where a friend's child knocked a bottle of soap into my 29 which contained platys and tetras I obviously had to get the fish out and I was not going to put them in with my cichlids so we threw them in with the pacus and they lived in harmony for about three weeks while the new 29 cycled.
***Let me stress that I am not reccomending this to anyone or suggesting that every pacu is like this, just giving an example of how peaceful they can be.***
I'll also add that pacus are vegetarians and while fish will eat others they can fit in there mouth, ours lived totally on fruits and veggies especially grapes and bananas

 

[LoveMyOscar]

...

 

[Sorrell]

I've kind of noticed that Pacus are a sensitive subject. Once again I am not reccomending them to anyone. The ones that we have had were all dumpers that people could no longer handle, and word spread in a small town that we had a 450 gallon tank. We had three for almost 15 years and they were wonderful fish. The biggest one was about 20 inches. Was this because they did not have 3000 gallons to live in? Perhaps. Is a 450 for 15 years better than a 55 for a short miserable life? Yes. Should pet stores sell these fish? Absolutely not, but that doesn't mean that in taking in these three fish we were being selfish, or putting our own wants before the fish's needs. Maybe some people would say that these fish would have been better off euthanized instead of us "adopting" them, but with my years of fishkeeping, I believe that they led happy lives.