can pacu's break your glass????

[pacu mom]

so the pacu spashed the water on the floor???? what kinda hood was it? my tank had hood is custom built. there is no chance of anymore than a few drops out one end coming out and that cause i wanted to add another powerhead which wasnt in the build plan. i dot know how strong the silicon holding the tank together is but i now dont believe my tank is under any danger, unless on of the kids takes a club to it.

They did not splash water----they broke the 150 gallon tank they were in.
"they busted my 150 right in front of me, all over the floor couple years ago. I had a banana in my hand standing across from them in the kitchen and wasn't paying attention. They got it alright. About 100 gallons of that tank was on my floor in a split second. They both just rammed it in the corner at the same time."

 

[Moshmarine]

the only real reasurance i can pass on to you is about the glass not cracking is that it took a sledge hammer for us to break the tank up to remove it... that glass took the sledgehammer like nothing i could imagine, it just would not break with out some really evil force.. so although i had the same fears as everyone else that pacu were capable of breaking glass.. after that i had my doubts that they could ever swim hard or fast enough to break the glass... this was a year old tank... so i don't know if they made them better then the old ones etc.. but like someone mentioned i would worry more about the seams if it were an older tank.. so quite honestly there is no quarentee .. i cannot promice you that the glass won't break.. i am sure it has happened to someone somewhere along the line.. but in my opinion that glass is stronger then you think. my pacus were turkey platter size.. one 36 inches the other a bit smaller.. i miss those fish..and in my opinion out of all the fish i have ever owned they were the best!!

how thick was the glass for that tank? My 300g is about 2 yrs old and has 1/2" thick glass and I once thought of getting a red bellied pacu...

 

[12 Volt Man]

you shouldn't have to worry about a pacu breaking 1/2" thick plate glass.

you would have a hard time breaking through that with a regular hammer on the first swing.

its incredibly strong.

I kept an 18" pacu for many years in the 90's. he could hit the glass pretty hard when spooked, but remember that the jaw/mouth area is a bit fleshy and a bit soft (unlike their bodies which feel like solid hard muscle). it would have been impossible to break through glass that thick with the fish's point impact alone. now, if a big one knocked a big 15 pound rock or something into it, that might be a different story.

heaters, well, thats another story. before I got heater guards, he broke a few when spooked.

 

[Red Devil]

how thick was the glass for that tank? My 300g is about 2 yrs old and has 1/2" thick glass and I once thought of getting a red bellied pacu...

Here is a piece of glass from the tank... 1/2 inch thick..my opinion is the pacus could never break this glass..if you were here with my hubby and sledge hammer you would understand... but this is just my opinion

 

[12 Volt Man]

^
I agree.

there was a thread here a while ago on MFK about a glass glass busting pacu (two of them in fact) as I remember commenting in the thread.

if I recall, the tank was a 180g, but home made bought used with only 1/4" thick glass, which is about half the normal thickness on a tank that size is usually built with..

in a tank like that, you have glass that is too thin to handle the weight/pressure of the water to begin with, so its no surprise that a monster fish could push it over the edge..

under normal situations (ie properly built tanks) there is no way they could break 1/2" glass.

if the glass had some sort of a defect prior, well, that could be a different situation. but then in a case like that it would have been just a matter of time before something happened anyway..

 

[12 Volt Man]

there have been stories about 'tank busters' around for years with many fish, not just pacus.

my personal opinion is that in many cases these were tanks made decades ago, probably with glass too thin, no braces etc.

30 years ago you couldn't just go out and buy a 220g tank like you can today at every local fish store.

with today's modern tanks, tank busting is a thing of the past IMO.

 

[willys-1]

These fish grow rapidly, get between 2 & 3', are heavy, up to approx 40 pounds or so.
Combine that with the fact that they are skittish by nature, they are capable of causing real problems. They are all muscle, can splash & jump very well.
Have a large enough tank, level & stable, and enjoy them !

Mine have a small "night light" so that there is no panic when the regular lights go on.
(less water outside the tank)

 

[Red Devil]

These fish grow rapidly, get between 2 & 3', are heavy, up to approx 40 pounds or so.
Combine that with the fact that they are skittish by nature, they are capable of causing real problems. They are all muscle, can splash & jump very well.
Have a large enough tank, level & stable, and enjoy them !

Mine have a small "night light" so that there is no panic when the regular lights go on.
(less water outside the tank)

One thing i learned when raising young horses was if you fed too much protein they would be jumpy and skittish..{jumping out of their skin} so i always watched the protein amounts ...also additional protein caused the bones to grow too fast..so i kind of carried this over with the pacus because they are vegetarians also.. and mine were hardly ever skittish always playful but not skittish.. Feed pacus more vegetables and less protein you should see a remarkable difference in their personality..worth trying anyway.. but it worked for me.

 

[12 Volt Man]

These fish grow rapidly, get between 2 & 3', are heavy, up to approx 40 pounds or so.
Combine that with the fact that they are skittish by nature, they are capable of causing real problems. They are all muscle, can splash & jump very well.

agreed. so as far as tank busting goes, if you have a 30 pound pacu, keep it in either a pond or suitable giant aquarium with monster thick glass..

a friend of mine had two 30" pacus in a 275g (they came with the tank). awesome fish. but two fish that size in even a big tank was trouble as far as water quality went. to feed them properly meant a cloudy, dirty tank all the time. he had to sell them. just not enough water volume for two fish that size in the same tank.

 

[willys-1]

One thing i learned when raising young horses was if you fed too much protein they would be jumpy and skittish..{jumping out of their skin} so i always watched the protein amounts ...also additional protein caused the bones to grow too fast..so i kind of carried this over with the pacus because they are vegetarians also.. and mine were hardly ever skittish always playful but not skittish.. Feed pacus more vegetables and less protein you should see a remarkable difference in their personality..worth trying anyway.. but it worked for me.

Mine have a high amount of veggies, but there are 15 of them. It's a chain reaction, when 1 starts the others follow.

Play time is like a litter of half grown puppies