Any Pacu Fans?
- Thread starter vivid930
- Start date
What Pacu Forum are you talking about? I know of one (http://www.postring.net/pacuforum/) they crashed but recovered and lost a lot of members.
Your poor pacu is terribly stunted. If you are doing water changes twice a month, the water quality has to be awful. Crystal clear water is not an indicator of water quality. In the nitrogen cycle, ammonia from fish waste/respiration and decomposing organic matter in the tank is converted into nitrites and then into nitrates by the beneficial bacteria in your filtration system. Unless you have an extremely heavily planted tank, the only efficient way to remove nitrates is by doing water changes. Nitrates, while not as toxic as ammonia and nitrites, has been implicated in a host of fish problems including stunting, hole-in-the head disease, failure to thrive and shortened life span. The nitrates in your tank have got to be sky high. Keeping nitrates at 20 ppm or below will provide a safe environment for your pacu. You really should invest in a freshwater master test kit and routinely test for ammonia, nitrites and nitrate. Your nitrate reading should determine how frequently and how much water you change out. The nitrate test is extremely technique sensitive, so you must follow the directions precisely and vigorously shake the bottle and the tube the full 30 seconds and minute respectively, or you will not get accurate results.
http://www.bigalsonline.com/StoreCa...eshwater+master+test+kits&queryType=0&offset=
You will probably have to do daily small water changes to get the nitrates down, once you find out how high they are. There is a condition called "old tank syndrome" where the poor fish are so used to the high nitrates, that it is almost shocking to them to change out too much water. Once your pacu is used to water parameters of 20 ppm or less, you can change out massive amounts of water with no ill effects on your fish. Our fish love water change time. To keep good water parameters, we do a minimum of two 200 gallon water changes on our 300 gallon tank every week...sometimes we do 3 changes. We will have to do a bigger tank build if our pacu get too big, or if we start having difficulty maintaining good water parameters. With good water quality, your pacu should grow. With poor water quality, your pacu will not live long.
Our pacu are voracious eaters. Their primary diet consists of pellets, but they will eat whatever we put in the tank. Just recently, we started giving them stuff we usually throw away....stems of brocholi...we almost don't need a garbage disposer. They "fight" over whole carrots. We no longer give our pacu watermelon. We gave them all the watermelon they wanted, and that was the only time we had an ammonia reading in our tank...probably caused by watermelon juice breaking down and excessive urination from eating all that watermelon. Here's a video clip of our big boys enjoying potato "chips".
You are right that pacu forum crashed in 2006. They were changing servers and in the process, lost their entire data base. The forum was offline for over 5 months. Not many of the former members found their way back. I was able to track down a few people and learned that they had lost their pacu. I am convinced that pacu will not live long in a small tank, unless the water parameters, specifically nitrates, are kept low. In the last year, two of the moderators lost their pacu. It is very sad that this very wonderful fish with such big personality and a potential life span of 30+ years is doomed to a short life, if people don't take care of them properly. I loved pacu forum, because pacu keepers supported and encouraged each other. Unfortunately, it's hard to stay positive, when you have to keep giving new pacu keepers the bad news that they will need a bigger tank. Any of you pacu keepers willing to give advice, we could use your help on pacu forum.
http://www.postring.net/pacuforum
If you do join, please use a fish related user name, so that you can be easily identified. The site gets 100+ hits every day by computer-generated spammers, most of them pornographic, so now each new member has to be validated before they can post. When there are hundreds of "new members" everyday, it is sometimes hard to identify the legitimate fishkeepers.
Susan
http://www.bigalsonline.com/StoreCa...eshwater+master+test+kits&queryType=0&offset=
You will probably have to do daily small water changes to get the nitrates down, once you find out how high they are. There is a condition called "old tank syndrome" where the poor fish are so used to the high nitrates, that it is almost shocking to them to change out too much water. Once your pacu is used to water parameters of 20 ppm or less, you can change out massive amounts of water with no ill effects on your fish. Our fish love water change time. To keep good water parameters, we do a minimum of two 200 gallon water changes on our 300 gallon tank every week...sometimes we do 3 changes. We will have to do a bigger tank build if our pacu get too big, or if we start having difficulty maintaining good water parameters. With good water quality, your pacu should grow. With poor water quality, your pacu will not live long.
Our pacu are voracious eaters. Their primary diet consists of pellets, but they will eat whatever we put in the tank. Just recently, we started giving them stuff we usually throw away....stems of brocholi...we almost don't need a garbage disposer. They "fight" over whole carrots. We no longer give our pacu watermelon. We gave them all the watermelon they wanted, and that was the only time we had an ammonia reading in our tank...probably caused by watermelon juice breaking down and excessive urination from eating all that watermelon. Here's a video clip of our big boys enjoying potato "chips".
You are right that pacu forum crashed in 2006. They were changing servers and in the process, lost their entire data base. The forum was offline for over 5 months. Not many of the former members found their way back. I was able to track down a few people and learned that they had lost their pacu. I am convinced that pacu will not live long in a small tank, unless the water parameters, specifically nitrates, are kept low. In the last year, two of the moderators lost their pacu. It is very sad that this very wonderful fish with such big personality and a potential life span of 30+ years is doomed to a short life, if people don't take care of them properly. I loved pacu forum, because pacu keepers supported and encouraged each other. Unfortunately, it's hard to stay positive, when you have to keep giving new pacu keepers the bad news that they will need a bigger tank. Any of you pacu keepers willing to give advice, we could use your help on pacu forum.
http://www.postring.net/pacuforum
If you do join, please use a fish related user name, so that you can be easily identified. The site gets 100+ hits every day by computer-generated spammers, most of them pornographic, so now each new member has to be validated before they can post. When there are hundreds of "new members" everyday, it is sometimes hard to identify the legitimate fishkeepers.
Susan
You will need at least 170gal for a mature red belly, my big fella is about a year old and is already 20 inches long
poor fish 
mine are 4 months old and they are to big for a 35g,out growing a 55g,and soon to be in a 240g,then a huge pond
find yours a home
if you really try im sure it can be done
gl
mine are 4 months old and they are to big for a 35g,out growing a 55g,and soon to be in a 240g,then a huge pond
find yours a home
if you really try im sure it can be done
gl
I got one as a drop off beginning of Dec. at about five inches. In four months time he was over twelve. Now he's out in a pond.
Hi susan, I was actually a member of the previous pacu forum. I had just joined before it started going down hill. You and I chatted a few times. I actually started feeding fred watermellon and Cucumbers at your suggestion.
I just switched him to a 90 gallon about two weeks ago and have done a water change on it once. I have a question for you. I struggle with algae, not the type that grows on things, the type that stays suspended in the water. What suggestions do you have for that?
BTW, I just fed him his first strawberry. It was hysterical. He went up, grabbed it, held it in his mouth for a few seconds, then spit it out, and proceeded to push water through his mouth for about 1 minute, like he was saying pthhhh. Then I came back a few minutes later and he had eaten it.
He's a very silly creature. I may have a pond in the works here, but it isn't for at least a year. Hopefully the 90 gallon will last him at least that long.
I just switched him to a 90 gallon about two weeks ago and have done a water change on it once. I have a question for you. I struggle with algae, not the type that grows on things, the type that stays suspended in the water. What suggestions do you have for that?
BTW, I just fed him his first strawberry. It was hysterical. He went up, grabbed it, held it in his mouth for a few seconds, then spit it out, and proceeded to push water through his mouth for about 1 minute, like he was saying pthhhh. Then I came back a few minutes later and he had eaten it.
He's a very silly creature. I may have a pond in the works here, but it isn't for at least a year. Hopefully the 90 gallon will last him at least that long.
Thanks, I did a test and it didn't show nitrates, or amonia. I did a partial water change, and will have to do another one in a day or two. He's been discovering alot of new foods the past few weeks, like Grapes, Carrots, and Strawberries. I thought that might have something to do with it. I did just set the tank up about 2 weeks ago, but it was with rocks from an established tank, and a filter from an established tank so I was hoping it would decrease the cycle time.
