At What age/size

syclone

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Nov 2, 2005
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South Dakota
the parents should dig a shallow pit in your substrate and start protecting it. the eggs if fertalized will have an orange color to them. Most people will take out the fry once they are free swimming I beleive. I have been trying to breed my reds for about a year now and no dice, so I am no expert but I did stay in a holiday inn.
I hope that helps some.
 

master.k.

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Mar 22, 2006
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Clinton Twp , MI
I KNEW IT DAM# IT. I chang my water and vacum the gravil.
THAT IS WHAT I SAW A LIGHT ORANGE NEST AND I SUCKET IT UP
DAM$:cry: :cry: :cry: :confused:
IF they bread once, is it likly they will do it again.
WILL THEY EAT THE FRY WHEN THEY SWIM. Do i hav to remove them right away.
 

RuXPiN

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 10, 2006
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Steve Irwins Shadow
You are so lucky, ive had p since the late 80's, on and off. Lots of breeding activity but no fertilized eggs. They will turn darker in color, almost black. they will fan out a nest. the fertilized eggs will be yellow. When you see yellow you vaccume them up and put them in a smallet tank with a spong filter. you then feed them brine shrimp. you can buy it on ebay. im gonna do another post with stuff ive gathered on the net on p breeding. they will breed again real soon. If i was you I would remove the other piranha from that tank, the male will defend his nest to the death.
 

RuXPiN

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 10, 2006
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Steve Irwins Shadow
this is stuff ive seen on the net. hope it helps got most of it from "dontgointhewater" hes a member here

As for breeding piranha in captivity, This is what works for me...

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.


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.

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. Point being that I really only need one of them to filter the tank, fully. But again the more filtration the better. so now its filtering 1500 gallons an hour, so it filters the whole tank 12 times an hour, or once every 5 min.

I should be charging you guys

you guys




(3)-Simple Trigger

(7)-Simple Trigger
More filtration.
__________________
Nick Cooper
Feeding baby pygocentrus nattereri...Pics+Info

One of the main problems with breeding piranha in captivity is getting the fry fed.

Here is a close up picture of a 5 day old pygocentrus nattereri fry. You can see that its belly is bright orange… meaning that it has just fed on live brine shrimp.


This is a picture of my brine shrimp hatchery system. Please note that it is not necessary to build a system as large as this…The only reason why my system is so large is because I have multiple pairs breeding constantly.


Here is a close up picture of the brine shrimp just before I feed them to the baby fry. I use a small pipette to suck up the brine shrimp from the bottom of the glass, which is where they all settle if left for 5 min after being places into the glass. And then the feeding begins.
]

After about 2 weeks the fry have fully formed bodies and are big enough to eat blood worms, frozen brine shrimp and white mosquito larva. Here is a picture of some 3-4 week old pygocentrus nattereri eating blood worms. Note that even at this size and age, the young piranha mass on food just like adults.

Breeding Pygocentrus nattereri


In order for attempting to breed rbp's you first must start with planning on having a larger aquarium. Large aquariums can require a great deal of space and maintenance as well as proper filteration. I would suggest that your choice of aquarium would be roughly 100gallons or larger. the aquarium must have the following equipment.
1. Thermal heaters: min. 300W;
2. Filtration: canister, wet/dry, etc;
3. Powerhead: can also be used.




CHOOSING YOUR PIRANHAS
In order to have a good shoal of piranha which can be capable of breeding for you, provided all parameters are met in order to induce breeding. You must purchase a shoal of at least 4-6 piranhas averaging about 5" - 7" in order for them to be close if not already sexually matured. RBP'S are not sexually dimorphic meaning you can not tell females and males apart from just looking at them with the naked eye.
Although, if you have had previous experience with breeding piranhas, you could possible be able to tell the male and female apart once they are in the spawning period. You can not go wrong by purchasing your piranhas at a juvenile age at sizes of 1.5" and growing them up too adulthood. I would recommend that you buy at least 10 rbp's as you could possible loose some to injury or territorial aggression.





SIGNS OF BREEDING
If you have been noticing, some changes in your rbp's possible more aggression than normal, or pairing off and separating themselves from the rest of the shoal. Then the spawning process may possibly be underway. A very good indication is noticing the pair (female/male) darkening in colour. They will turn black and have a purplish tint with highlighted sparkle when under lighting. This display usually starts after tank maintenance and water changes.





NEST BUILDING
Shortly after pairing off from the rest of the shoal it is time for the female/male to pick out the location to build the nest: although they now have selected a general area to start the breeding they must come up with the nest location. Usually the male is the more aggressive one to get underway, but could also be accompanied by the female. The male will tilt his face down into the gravel and shift it around biting and blowing it to make it fit for ideal breeding conditions.
If the same location is used over a period of time, the gravel will start to become finer from the male/female biting on it and crushing the rock. Small pieces of saved food can be placed into the gravel by the pair when building the nest, this is for the freshly hatched fry to get a head start on feeding, as they will not be strong enough to surface for a few days.



Female piranhas can fight over the right breeding locations from time to time: here is a video of this taking place - Click.



BREEDING IN THE NEST
When the male is finished with the nest building, the female is usually within a foot of the male. But at times she can be further away, sometimes on the other side of the tank.
The female is usually floating up higher than the rest of the piranhas. The female is now full of eggs, and perhaps the air in all the eggs sacks make the female float more than normal. The male will brush up against her in order to direct her towards the nest. She doesn't put up too much of a fight at this time and will slowly pass by the nest a few times. Once they settle in, the nest they will go over the nest and fine tune it a little bit to make sure they have it all set, and ready for the breeding stage to begin.

When the pair is ready to release the eggs, they will be side by side, with their nose down into the gravel and tails straight up. They will wiggle together, as the female will release the eggs and the male will start to fertilize the eggs as they are released from the female.
They will continue this process over and over, while nipping at each other and switching positions from side to side. Any intrusions from other tank mates at this time is crossing over the line, and will be very quickly chased away with a great deal of force from the male/female.

The overall process of the breeding will take several hours and runs until very late in the evening, as the female will release 1000-1500 eggs and the male will need to fertilize them all in order for them to be fertile.
When the pair have spawned the male usually guards the eggs for two reasons: completing the fertilization process, and protecting the eggs from predators.

Breeding video.



NEST WITH FERTILE EGGS
After the female and the male have finished breeding in the nest, the male is usually the piranha that will guard the nest. He could possible have the female within a foot or so from the nest, but the male, is usually the one who is present at all times. The eggs after breeding should be all clustered around the nest and there should roughly be a thousand or more depending on the size of the female which released the eggs. The eggs if fertilized properly should be orangish in colour and be covered in a thick layer of milt.













HATCHING FRY AND GROWTH RATE
The fry will start to hatch within 48 hours. The best way to have them hatch is to have them removed to a holding tank. Be sure to remove the white infertile eggs so they do not spread a fungus over to the fertilized eggs.



Once the fry begin hatching they will pop their tails out through the eggs sacks, creating a spinning motion.



The fry will grow very fast from here on with good water parameters, water changes and freshly hatched brine shrimp.





Also check out the article "Pygocentrus nattereri from Egg to Adult" for more pictures of developing redbelly fry.



FOR HATCHING AND RAISING FRY A FEW SUPPLIES ARE REQUIRED
Equipment:
1. 10 gal holding tank;


2. sponge filter;


3. Air pump & airline (any size air pump will work fine);
4. Air stone (a three inch airstone works fine);
5. Heater 100 watts;


6. Siphoning hoses. (tank vacume hose works fine);
7. 2-3 five gallon pails;
8. fish egg guard;


9. thermometer;


10. canopy (glass or plastic).


Food
1. Brine shrimp eggs;


2. Brine shrimp hatchery;


3. Crunched up cichlid pellets. (crush them up till they are fine powder);
4. Frozen brine shrimp (purchasae at your lfs);
5. Frozen blood worms (purchase at your lfs);
Video of fry eating blood worms - Click
6. Hikari first bites;



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INTRODUCTION
I have six red belly piranhas in a 125 gallon. The smallest being roughly 4 inches and the largest in between 6-7 inches. The two I saw mating were the two biggest. These two were from a separate batch so I got pretty lucky. There has been one piranha guarding the eggs ever since I seen them spawning he/she will not let anybody around she just keeps spinning around and around and once and awhile he/she scoops down over top like when they are itchy but doesn't touch the rocks I was noticing.

This all started on sat night after gravel cleaning and water change. I was told by my local fish store that's what they do. They wait till you clean the rocks and water change so that they know you will not harm the eggs. I guess they must know that water changes don't happen everyday. And they have enough time before next cleaning.
Well it doesn't look too successful my first time with spawning. The eggs look like they are almost gone and no fry to be seen. I have made some changes to the tank; I have cleared some gravel and placed a flat rock at the bottom. Hopefully they will use the rock for the eggs next time. I have also turned the temp up to 83F degrees it was at 80F degrees before. The piranha is still in the same spot doing the same circles but can't see the eggs like before. I'm hoping they know something I don't. I have the 10 gallon tank ready stable at 82F degrees and I will keep on trying. I will let everyone at p-fury know how the progress is doing as soon as I see more eggs.
It didn't take to long for my piranhas to get to know each other! They have only been together for 10 days and already I have eggs. One of them is guarding them spinning in circles well the other one is not to far away. I seen them in action last night, so today i looked in the tank and yes little yellow eggs now. I don't know anything about small fry fish but I have a 10 gallon aquarium empty. I just cleaned it out and put it away last weekend. Well time to put it up again.
Round two just seen them pair off again hope this one works out. I did not see them do the wango tango yet but they are protecting a specific area in the corner of my tank. The thing I don't like is it is very close to my power head 901.My concerns are if there are eggs now or soon does this mean i can't use my power head will they get sucked up or do they stick good to the rocks?
Well getting very close now the eggs are now hatching and there is movement going on. The papa piranha is protecting his investment with great pride, i hope they pull it off. I need to get that power head back on fast i am only running a Rena Filstar XP3 pushing 350 gph. I also have a 12'' air stone but this is a 125 gal. tank and I need that power head back on.
SEXING
Here we go this time. I didn't see them do the mating dance but I noticed they moved over to the far side of the tank away from all the other piranhas so it was like right on! Three weeks went by here we go the next morning. I noticed the male, because he guarded the eggs last time. They are both the two biggest in the tank, the male is a little bit smaller in length and a lot skinnier. The female ballooned out, she has a lot of darker coloring and nice purple spots where he has always been very light in color and didn't change to much.
He is one angry piranha I hope he doesn't freak too much. I have never seen him spin in circles like a tornado before and then he bolts out to the middle only to go right back. He will make eye contact with me and watch me facing head on. I am leaving the eggs in this time around as I feel they are safer in there then in the 10 gal. I have prepared a sponge filter in there soaking since last time, in the old water from the host tank. I will siphon out all the water and fill it with some new water from the host tank.
I had read some info on another web site and that person recommends leaving the fry for a week or two with the parents. But I'm not sure if they would last that long as i have six piranhas in there.
I have kept the water temp at a steady 82 deg my water change was due on Saturday. I did not do one because I figured to much stress on the papa piranha. I have been overfeeding them to keep them full. I noticed the mother piranha eating like a pig! She deserves it good job mama piranha. I have not put the lights on since Saturday night and stay away as much as possible my water parameters are fine checked this morning.
FEEDING TIME (FRY and Adults)

I don't know much about that brine shrimp. I seen it frozen in little cubes but they also sell little kits with some pouches to make your own. I thought they sold freshly made ones already but i guess not. I think I'll try those Hikari special fry flakes which sounds easier to use. I just threw in four little neon tetras.
At feeding time I usually always feed by opening the middle lid of the tank. I throw in just enough that all six could get a little bit to snack on. But by far the female is the most aggressive piranha in the tank. I swear she will snatch more shrimp in her mouth than all the other five. She must really work up a appetite and not to mention her size.
I checked again this morning, and decided to do a siphon. I first had checked the water parameters in the 10 gal and it was pretty high with nitrite and nitrate due to adding those tetras. so i did 4 partial water changes with the water from the host tank until I had a good reading, don't know if that will do. But, it's done then I started to siphon out the small fry. I did not go crazy and try to get all of them as I took out maybe a hundred or so as I looked in the pail. I noticed lots were swimming and a few were not. I had poured the water in very slowly and five minutes later I checked to see if I could see any movement in there. I was happy to see some swimming freely.
I noticed some on top of the sponge filter and some on the decorations. I will watch the progress over the next 24 hrs and decide if I should siphon more of them out.
Today, I checked the fry tank out and wow nothing moving. All the fry looks to be dead checked water parameters and wow!!! Now I know why no fry. Cycling is in high gear some ammonia signs very high nitrite, and maximum nitrate. So I even threw in more gravel and decorations that should help. Even more tetras still alive and to boot the temp went up to 84F+ degrees. Not a problem because the host tank has 200 plus free swimming babies. And no signs of parents gobbling them up yet. I am making some newly hatched brine shrimp and feeding small crushed flakes going back to LFS today to pick up some of those Hikari fry flakes.

But the father in the tank guards all the eggs and fry but when he gets some food he will not eat it. He kind of just seems to chew it up, and play with it. At first it never dawned on me what he was doing. But after awhile finding pieces of food in some very weird places. I watched him a little closer and noticed he was saving for the small fry most likely. but the pappa fish doesn't realize that I can not let this happen. As he makes me have high ammonia readings this way.

Here is a pic of the mother piranha after eating, 5 days after spawning?
Oh and right now i have 6 adult piranhas - 8 (7 week old) and 13 ( 3 week olds) and my last batch, by far my best batch has over a 150 fry still living. I had done some tweaking to my normal routine and so far much success. At this period in time I was pulling dead ones out by 25-50 daily. But I have only seen one dead so far!! I'm expecting to lose some more.
Male guarding food.

Here is the father piranha guarding a frozen silverside minnow. He bit the head off so the fry could eat on the insides. I'm not positive but he would always saves a portion of some food and guards it. I don't know if the fry would eat it, as i always removed the old food.


Close up of cut minnow. A baby piranha pooping.
When I siphon eggs, I don't take them all out, and this is a picture of the ones that were left behind that hatched and are swimming around a few days after.
They are about 4 days old at this stage. They seem to lay low at first not swimming around. Their swimming skills are very poor at this stage. They tend to all fight for the corner of the glass, and almost stick on it like a Plecostomus species. They can't idle in one spot, they move or will sink. When they want to descend they just drop straight down like a plane crashing, then a couple seconds later they will move. They lie down on their sides on the bottom not moving till a snail or something spooks them then they will dart off.


(L) Here is a picture of them chillin.' (M) 2 weeks old. (R) One month old.

On Saturday, I had to do a routine water change and gravel clean, so come Sunday i decided to check my parameters to make sure if everything was alright.
The ammonia was a little high, but no signs of nitrite. I figured it would be ok, but\did some small water changes to help dilute, and bring down the ammonia a little. I knew it would probably have a delay in breeding from past experience. Whenever i do something to the tank outside of regular water changes that it causes a delay in breeding. But right now, I don't have any room for more fry right so I was willing to proceed anyway.
GROWTH


Fry holding Tank
Sexual dimorphism; Male? or Female?

The male piranha was in the nest the whole time, doing his thing. But the female was no where near him. She remained at the other end of the aquarium, and did not go by him at all. Today being Thursday, I was starting to wonder if maybe this was the end of the breeding. But around 2:30 pm I noticed that all the piranhas were swimming around and looked spooked. Shortly after they were starting to fight with each other. The male was scraping with another piranhas. I shined a light on them but they did not stop fighting. I had to leave because needing to be somewhere else at this time and I thought that they would have it all settled down by the time I returned. When I returned in around 6:30 I looked in and they were all spread out and quiet. I looked at the nest and the piranha in the nest was not the male or the female there was another piranha who had taken over the nest! Now I don't know if this is a male or a female piranha in this new nest! But the female is beside this piranha. I figured that the female dumped the male for a new piranha. The male was over in the middle, but looked ok. His fins did not look damaged and he was not hurt. So now was there going to be no more spawning? or do i have another male who wants to breed with this piranha? Or will the known female try and play them both?

Breeding in new location
So I left them alone for a bit and came back, still nothing then checked again later to see the female back with the original male. They were side by side in the middle of the tank. Then a half hour later I seen them starting to breed again. But they were not in the nest. But big deal, I was just happy to see that they still can breed.
Every so often in between the mating ritual with this female, he kept going back to the nest to start to fight with the other piranha in that nest. So they did their thing till 1:00 am and then the piranha in the nest had taken off back to the other side. The piranha, which I thought was a male and now turns out to be a female now ends up going back to the nest and starts digging and picking rocks. So now the male is in the middle guarding eggs I presume and now the female is digging a nest. So what happens now?
1) the female is digging for the original male to come back and leave his eggs.?

2) the female is going to bang them both?

3) she will just control the nest for future eggs?

(L) Female beat up a little. Being measured approximately at 6 inches TL.

I stuck a meter stick outside the glass on the stand ledge (SEE ABOVE). I know this does not give an accurate measurement, but it shows that she is probably around 6 inches or a touch larger maybe. She was about 1.5 inches back from the glass in photo above.


MonsterFishKeepers > General Aquarium Discussion Forum > Breeding

Feeding baby pygocentrus nattereri...Pics+Info



Feeding baby pygocentrus nattereri...Pics+Info

One of the main problems with breeding piranha in captivity is getting the fry fed.

Here is a close up picture of a 5 day old pygocentrus nattereri fry. You can see that its belly is bright orange… meaning that it has just fed on live brine shrimp.


This is a picture of my brine shrimp hatchery system. Please note that it is not necessary to build a system as large as this…The only reason why my system is so large is because I have multiple pairs breeding constantly.


Here is a close up picture of the brine shrimp just before I feed them to the baby fry. I use a small pipette to suck up the brine shrimp from the bottom of the glass, which is where they all settle if left for 5 min after being places into the glass. And then the feeding begins.
]

After about 2 weeks the fry have fully formed bodies and are big enough to eat blood worms, frozen brine shrimp and white mosquito larva. Here is a picture of some 3-4 week old pygocentrus nattereri eating blood worms. Note that even at this size and age, the young piranha mass on food just like adults.
 

cane

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 18, 2006
498
0
0
london
great stuff very helpful:) i think my rbp are showing early signs of breeding:) i will be referring to this thread
 

RuXPiN

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 10, 2006
243
0
0
Steve Irwins Shadow
few pics of fert eggs and fry

pairandeggs.jpg

PEggs.jpg

5dayoldfry.jpg
 

cane

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 18, 2006
498
0
0
london
cool are they yours?i see what you mean about them going black.it dont look like they built much of a nest.
 
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