Imposter in our midst.

[Villimadur]

I recently renewed my aquarium hobby, and went with 5 1,5-2" RBPs in a temporary 40L tank. Going for a 300L in a month or two.

But onto the main topic. I have found a curiously successful tank buddy for them, a platy, one with the exact same color scheme as the RBPs. He even shoals with them!


So my question for the more experienced piranha keepers: Arent platys usually gobbled up as food?


My RBPs are very agressive, they even attack my Apple snails.
They are very selfish too, when one of them gets a hold on the neon tetras I occasionly feed them, its a race to eat and run(swim) from the others.


I will supply pictures tomorrow when my cam battery is recharged.

 

[master.k.]

Well ?
how long has this ben a happening ?

 

[HiGhTiMeZ]

hehe cool!

 

[AnDr3w]

That is pretty freaking cool!

 

[IVIorgan2]

I give it two months tops your piranha will grow bigger and faster than the platy and that will eventually lead to its demise

 

[HunterX]

If you keep them well fed, they might leave him alone for quite a while.
Sometimes even a particular goldfish will last for a long time.
Dont hold your breath though.

 

[eng55]

Ha that is pretty interesting. When I first got my reds they were around one inches. I put quite a few guppies in the tank to cycle before I got them. Well they didn't exactly shoal with the reds but it was interesting to see them when I would feed my reds goldfish, once they got bigger. The guppies would like coral the goldfish and lead it towards the reds. Guess they did this because they would usually clean up whatever was left of the feeders once the reds were done with them.
E

 

[altimaser]

It will not last long ... They will revoke his free pass

 

[Villimadur]

And so they did, when I accidently turned off the lights.
They went after him faster than it took me to turn it back on, but he survived unharmed. As soon as they saw him in the light they stopped attacking him.

If I were to ponder the reasons he is left alone when the light is on, it would be because they might be confused because of the coloring, like when piranhas have a pacu with them.
Another more likely reason is that they are still a bit nervous, but that cant really be the reason, since they have gobbled up all the neon tetras and other platys that I occasionly feed them.

Although I have started having doubts about all my RBPs being Pygocentrus Nattereri. Two have started to "develop" diffrent aspects than the rest of the pack. The largest of the pack has become much darker than the rest, which normally would indicate the start of mating, but he is just 2" so I find that unlikely. But I know they go through a lot of changes when they are growing up.
The second diffrent one has a black spot slightly behind the gils, which can ofcourse be one of the many changes RBPs go through, but since they were "supposedly" of the same batch, they should all be changing the same? Right?

My LFS sells them as Serrasalmus, and doesnt really go any deeper in what subspecies they are, but assume they are all RBPs.


And oh yeah, the blackish piranha has become extremely aggressive and territorial, against all the other fish, and even the Apple Snails.

 

[Villimadur]

I finally got a half-assed picture of the elusive "Piranha Platy"
I apologize for the blurryness, but my temp tank aint that clear.