Hey guys, im brand new to piranhas and i recently obtained 5 RBP's, they were put in the tank a couple of hours ago and i have noticed one has a chunk missing from its back, they will not eat very aggressivly yet, they sort of just leave the food alone... so i was wondering why they would do this, is it stress?
Piranha bit another of its kind...
- Thread starter Dylan
- Start date
they're piranhas man, just the nature of the beast. bites and nips are pretty much inevitable, but there are definitely things you can do to avoid more serious problems... how big are your natts?
Im no expert, but it all depends on what size tank they are in, do they have adequate hiding spaces.....are they being fed enough. Piranha will establish their own dominance and some will be picked on...no matter what u do, it will happen. What are their sizes at the time right now...? I hope this helps....
Its a 90G i have 4 nats, at about... 3-4 inches... filters are a fluval 405, rena filstar 2, ac110, temp is set at 79.... water changes weekly, fed half a fillet of tilapia/beefheart twice a day.
first off, nix the beefheart from their daily diet. beefheart, if fed at all, should only be feed once in awhile, once a month at the most. keep feeding the tilapia fillets, but mix up their diet a bit with shrimp, krill, and pellets.
if you are having issues with aggression, i can start out by recommending that you add more cover to the tank. at 3-4 inches, you really don't need to be feeding them more than once a day, usually at about 3 inches, i start increasing the time between feedings until i get to a point where their feedings are completely random, sometimes its a day or two, sometimes three or four.
your fish are most likely just adjusting to their new home by establishing territories and figuring out a pecking order, i wouldn't worry much at this point, just keep an eye on them and give em a few days to get settled.
if you are having issues with aggression, i can start out by recommending that you add more cover to the tank. at 3-4 inches, you really don't need to be feeding them more than once a day, usually at about 3 inches, i start increasing the time between feedings until i get to a point where their feedings are completely random, sometimes its a day or two, sometimes three or four.
your fish are most likely just adjusting to their new home by establishing territories and figuring out a pecking order, i wouldn't worry much at this point, just keep an eye on them and give em a few days to get settled.
^i feed my rhoms onece a day but they dont always eat it so i have to remove it later, do you take 3 day breaks from feeding your rhoms?
the only one i feed daily is my little 2" rhom, all of my other piranhas are on a random feeding schedule, including my mixed shoal tank. every once in a while i will feed them two days in a row, but usually it's a few days between feedings and there is absolutely no pattern to it.
there are a couple benefits to this: first off, it prevents overfeeding, which is something that probably 90% of piranha keepers do, it also helps to make your fish more outgoing, they'll pretty much always attack food right away because they aren't caught in a pattern of having food available to them all the time.
i know alot of people are scared to do this with shoals because they think that they need to just keep them stuffed with food in order to prevent aggression and canibalism, but i haven't lost a fish due to canibalism in a few years and my current shoal of natts has been together for almost a year since they were 1/2" with no losses and i even threw three caribes in the mix when they were all 3-4" without any problems with aggression to this day.
there are a couple benefits to this: first off, it prevents overfeeding, which is something that probably 90% of piranha keepers do, it also helps to make your fish more outgoing, they'll pretty much always attack food right away because they aren't caught in a pattern of having food available to them all the time.
i know alot of people are scared to do this with shoals because they think that they need to just keep them stuffed with food in order to prevent aggression and canibalism, but i haven't lost a fish due to canibalism in a few years and my current shoal of natts has been together for almost a year since they were 1/2" with no losses and i even threw three caribes in the mix when they were all 3-4" without any problems with aggression to this day.