Hoplias Aimara "Colombian Orinoco"
- Thread starter Oxydoras
- Start date
Dang what a beast. I need one of these boys... You've inspired me man... Pretty soon if u wanted to u could do some neon tetras like that one guy on here
Cardinal tetras are the end goal as tank mates. When she gets set up in her big girl tank, I would like to have 1-200 cardinals in there to liven it up and add a nice splash of color. Not to mention, having so much movement in the tank should inevitably calm her down a bit.
I certainly recommend aimara as being the ultimate monster fish (in my humble opinion), though they are not for the faint of heart. They're relatively unpredictable, and can have serious "fits" for no apparent reason, which can result in damage to both the specimen and the enclosure.
As it just so happens, at about 3 this morning I was startled by several loud banging sounds coming from my critter room. I entered the room to find several gallons of water strewn about on the wall, front of the aquarium, and all over the floor. Something had seemingly startled her in the middle of the night causing her to jump at warp speed, hitting the top of the tank, just like she was so happy to do as a small juvenile. This resulted in her removing 5-6 scales and skinning a bit off the top of her head, leaving her frantically panting on the bottom.
Like I said, this species is not for the faint of heart. It was quite a stressful thing to wake up to (and took the better part of an hour to dry everything up), and this seems to happen once every several months. I'm always worried its going to happen and she'll end up seriously injuring herself. Though I suppose that's just the nature of keeping such large, powerful fish in home aquaria !
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