Breeding Triggers For Piranha

DontGoInTheWater

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 26, 2006
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Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
As for breeding piranha in captivity, This is what I have learned...

Triggers are the best way to induce breeding with piranha. These triggers are, and starting with the best:

(1)-PH Stress and Relief
Allow and do not force your PH to drop to about 6.0-6.2 PH... leave the low PH in the aquarium for as long as possible, a month or so being the best...but all the while watching your fish for any sign of distress...which does not normally happen...this in turn will make the fish think it is in the dry season....then after the period of time has past....Due a rather large water change using pretty cooled water, but not to cooled..make sure that your water temp does not go down too too much.. but you do want it to go down a bit. to about 70. - 72. deg.... and then bring your PH back up to about 6.6 - 7.0 after the water change is done. Which in turn makes the fish think it is the rainy season, which is when piranha breed in the wild.

(2)-Rain system.
Simple to make, buy some ppc piping cut it to the length of the inside of your tank, add elbows and compressed metal ring clamps to keep the water in.. drill a whole bunch of holes... attach a powerhead 802 to a hose going inside the tank leading up to the rain system.. then plug it in and let her rip... ps.. don't worry if a couple of seals are leaking a bit.. as long as the water is going into the tanks its all good.. pss.. you may want to add a quick filter cartrage to the powerhead so that nothing gets in the pipes and dirtys the water.




(3)-Simple Trigger
If you have a nice amount of piranha, around 6-8 in a large tank...and min tank size should be around 100 gallons .. but it has been done before in smaller tanks.... Take out all but the 2 that are showing breeding behavior.. this can induce breeding by making the piranha think that they have left the shoal to breed.

(4)-Simple Tirgger
A simple gravel cleaning and a good water change can also induce breeding, cause of... if you clean your tank on a routinely bases.. after doing the cleaning the piranha may know that it will be a while before you clean it again so they may be thinking this the best time out of any:)

(5)-Simple Trigger
An addition of 1 or 2 new adult piranha to the shoal.
Cause.....may be due to compatition or new intrest.

(6)-Simple Trigger
The addition of a good nest or nesting site. Things to use are, a mop head with all of the strings cut to about and inch or two. nice live plants .. with open room around it .. so that they can bite the leaves off and use the stems left as a nest, also you can use a nice bed of java moss, or even dig out and make a nice little nest in the gravel yourself and place a flat stone in the bottom mddle of it....mine just liked the gravel,regular natural fish store gravel.

(7)-Simple Trigger
More filtration. The more filtation the better.
An example of this would be my 125 gallon long. I use 3 Aquaclear 500's on that tank allown. Each of those filters filter 500 gallons an hour. meaning that I really only need one of them to filter the tank, enough. But again the more filtration the better. so now it filters 1500 gallons an hour, so it filters the whole tank 12 times an hour, or once every 5 min.

That is all for now, but I will post more soon.
 

fishnthings

" id rather be a goldfish "
MFK Member
Jun 28, 2005
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Pensacola
i dont think you could be any more specific, this is great stuff, im definatley going to try this!
 

Booger

Candiru
MFK Member
Apr 12, 2005
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Hillsboro, OR
Great post. I'd love to see a lot more like it in this forum. I would only add "feed lots of good food" to that list. I'm partial to high protein, calorie dense foods like beefheart, earthworms, blackworms, etc. as breeding is a calorie dependent activity.

Will you consider a follow-up post to address what has always been the more difficult aspect of breeding fish for me - raising the fry?
 

MonsterGuppy

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 6, 2006
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Modesto Ca
interesting... u said the minimum is 100G? and....does this apply to all pirhana species? or just the red bellies it looks like u have the red billies not too sure..
 

ewurm

Aimara
MFK Member
Jan 27, 2006
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Try some Barry White and feed them some oysters.
 

davo

Aimara
MFK Member
Jan 9, 2006
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England
thats great, i love the rain system, i suppose that could be a helpful idea for breeding many different types of fish
 
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