At 6" it will be obvious. Piranhas do not have the attitude their reputation leads so many to think. They can be very skittish, especially in small groups. Google images each and you will see the obvious differences.
Black vs Red Pacu: scientific names please
- Thread starter reptileguy2727
- Start date
wayne the pain;4426985; said:
If you click on the "all pictures link on each of those links it becomes clear just how much confusion there is and how poorly maintined fish base is. The pirannas pictured for black pacu is simply laughable.
kdrun76;4438763; said:
Both list Pacu as a common name!
Here are pictures of mine, I'm 90% sure they´re piranhas, what do you think?
Sorry for the terrible pics, its so hard to get them to pose!
From my understanding my pacu is a Black here a a couple pics. They are of the same fish, the first after I've had him a few months and the second when I brought him home in the container. Also I believe that most Red Pacu turn black when they get big, but I'm sure there are exceptions to this. I have only seen this one Black Pacu in person but I see the big Reds all the time. The blacks are green and black and the reds turn more like a grey and black. Anyhow IMO the blacks are much better looking. Anyone know where I can get a small one?
johnny potatoes;4550211; said:
That's a TRUE black Pacu, beautiful fish, also known as Tambaqui.
the aquarium i volunteer at has one black pacu and one red belly, aside from color differences i have noticed that the black has a slightly more elongated body shape, like Johnny's and the red belly is rounder like Karen's
In marine world scientific name is very good way (almost sure way) to identify specimens, fish, coral or invert. For color variant, they put "sp." after the scientific name. For freshwater fish, it seems to be almost impossible. The other day I noticed two different kinds of gold nugget pleco at LFS; one smaller spots and other has larger spots. Later I read there are 3 type of gold nugget pleco itselt; L018, L081 and L177. It is crazy. As far as "pacu", there seems to be many misunderstanding among aquarists, wholesellers and LFS. So many people judge pacu by "color". Recently I purchased 15" pacu under black pacu because the owner said it is due to all black. After all research internet and reading all blogs, I concluded mine is red belly pacu. Regardless I love. If you search google under "colossoma macropomum", you would see some "red belly pacu". However, if you do it under "tambaqui", you can see true black pacu images. IMO both are completely different fish. Red belly has more round disklooking appearance while black pacu has longer football body with olive color. I don't remember where, but I saw a photo of tambaqui juv. It doesn't look like a pacu at all. It is brownish green goldfish looking fish. By the way, tambacu is hybrid of tambaqui (black pacu) and red belly pacu.
