fisrt piranha, any advice?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
A

angryinsect

Candiru
MFK Member
Jun 2, 2009
361
1
48
43
British Columbia Canada
one of my suppliers from work(lfs) gave me a 4.5-5'' black rhom the other day. i've done my research and read the stickies, and have plenty experience with monster fish, just wondering if anyone has some extra tips or advice

the setup is a 90gal with a ac110 and an 804 powerhead with sand substrate, driftwood, and some terra cotta pots for cover. tankmates(food) include 3 1.5'' hybrid cichlids, 4 2.2-3.5'' covicts, a dozen or so rosey reds and 3-5 2'' marble crays. the P was quite shy untill the addition of the convicts yesturday.



Cheers,
Jordan
 
spend more time in front of the tank so it can get use to you. be patient with it since it can take some time to come out of its shell.
try to get it off live and on to frozen food, it'll be easier for you and better for the fish unless you can constantly provide health feeders free of disease and parasites. (stay away from goldfish feeders and rosey reds)
hard to give additional advise/tips without knowing what you already know from your research.
 
i know roseys aren't the best feeders, and yes the plan is to get him on frozen soon. spending time in front of the tank is a little hard as the tank is in a back room. i think the final setup will be my 6' 110gal with a large scool of cardinals or something along those lines
 
you'll have to grow it to pretty big size before you add all those cardinals so it won't target them as prey but still there's no guarantee that it'll work out. If you have a densely planted tank to provide tons of hiding places for the cardinals it might work out.
would be a sweet setup, look forward to see some pics
 
yea, they reach about 6" in the first year of their lives then usually 0.5-1" a year and max out around 12" for a captive grown rhom. so you looking at 5-6 years.
 
haha yeah they take a long time to become monsters. you can throw tetras in now. mine's the same size and i put em in. it'll take a few days for him to eat them all (i get 5 at a time). so dont get too many or you're either gonna have dead starved tetras or you'll end up having to fed them to keep them alive long enough for him to eat.
 
I don't think he wants to feed the tetras to the Rhom..... however...

Short answer: When he is big enough so that the tetras can out dart him over the tank. But as ever, things an never be certainties with piranhas.

Long answer: The advice I got from my lfs if that you can add tetras once they get to a relatively big size, I am upgrading to a 600 litre tank my red bellies will be in there with I hope a few tetras, once mine hit about 9" the tetras can be added, so make of that what you will, I don't expect my tetras to last long but if it works it should be good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom