Hello, I am getting three red belly's in two days at about two inches in length. (Or thats what aquascapes online says, so probably smaller.) I am putting them into a 36 gallon tank for the time being untill they get larger. planning on making switch to 55 gallon in December then larger when necesarry. researched for about three days before making the decision to get these rbp. Needing info from first hand owners on the best feeding choices for juveniles, and how to best care for them. got alot of mixed opinions on all the searching I did on the internet. Please reply. Thank You.
New piranha tank, tips, first timer!!
- Thread starter amanning
- Start date
there easy fish to keep, just keep the temp constant 78fah, you will need good filtration when there bigger as they are messy eaters, and do 20percent water changes every week and you will see the little buggers grow quite quick prawns are really good for the colour and growth
Odd, alot of people responding that I've never seen before. Nice to see us growing.
Food at that size, i'd stick with bloodworm and krill cubes, silversides and cut up fish or shrimp you can buy at the grocery store. Talipia fillet is the cheapest and you can find big bag of frozen shrimp or just get shrimp the same place you'd find the fish. You'll want to freeze the shrimp to kill off parasites and then thaw it and cut it up in bite size pieces (same with fillet fish). A best practice is cut up the fish and put them in sandwhich baggies and then put them in the freezer. You'd just have to thaw it out before the feeding. Same with shrimp, just place them in baggies, freeze, thaw and cut to bite size. If you're already fish keeping you probably have regular tropical flakes, they'll still eat that and you can switch to pellets when they get a lil bigger.
Food at that size, i'd stick with bloodworm and krill cubes, silversides and cut up fish or shrimp you can buy at the grocery store. Talipia fillet is the cheapest and you can find big bag of frozen shrimp or just get shrimp the same place you'd find the fish. You'll want to freeze the shrimp to kill off parasites and then thaw it and cut it up in bite size pieces (same with fillet fish). A best practice is cut up the fish and put them in sandwhich baggies and then put them in the freezer. You'd just have to thaw it out before the feeding. Same with shrimp, just place them in baggies, freeze, thaw and cut to bite size. If you're already fish keeping you probably have regular tropical flakes, they'll still eat that and you can switch to pellets when they get a lil bigger.
we r growing first the web and then the world 
lol
don't feed them cypronids (like goldfish, barbs etc.). It causing B vitamin deficiency. It's Very bad for piranhas. Live foods in general should be fed with caution. More than likely your never going to see the legendary aggressive feeding behavior, and they contain parasites a lot of times. If you feed live breed your own.
Great feeding instructions and options were given - plants and snails can be benifical additions for "clean up" duties - the harms of introducing feeders esp. Cyprinids - Overfiltration. Good tank upgrading plan - sounds like your on the right track. The only thing I can add is P's appreciate low watt lighting.
Otherone;3654610; said:
plants will help clean up but snails wont do much cleaning in a natt tank.
if you want a nice 55 gallon display tank you dont plan on tearing down for awhile plant it good and add whatever you want.
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if you wanna make 3 big bad natts in the shortest time possible heres my reccomendation..
if they are small and cant tear up the fish very well, put a shrimp in and if it looks like they arent eating the whole thing then go to a good petstore and get live blackworms. your 55 will need to be bare bottom, or i like minimal gravel , just scattered pebbles not enough to catch detrius. get a koralia 4 powerhead and add some driftwood to the opposite end of the tank. mix up blackworms one day krill another larvae on another and nightcrawlers. then go to the diest others like ballinouttacontrol have stated. over filter your tank a 10 times turnover in an hour is okay but 15 is better. and do a 60 percent w/c twice a week more if you can and always have water conditioner for chlorine, and try to match temps with your tank.
but if they are the full 3 inches then do everything i said except for the feeding schedule. i would get the smallest ones they have its fun to grow them up. post pics good luck
Better to keep them in a bigger group..more than 5 would be best...i have 15 piranhas for more than 10 years, together with placosomus and catfish and some fish i fished myself in a small lake close to my place... all in a 900 liter tank.
You see, they all grow up together,so nobody gets realy hurt (some tail cuts some times of course).
I never feed "alive food", so the piranhas don't get any ideas to try on there fellow-fishes..hehe.
Water must of course been clean and low light is even better + some nice hiding places!
I feed them only twice a week and everybody is happy...
When they grow,they look really powerfull!!!
You see, they all grow up together,so nobody gets realy hurt (some tail cuts some times of course).
I never feed "alive food", so the piranhas don't get any ideas to try on there fellow-fishes..hehe.
Water must of course been clean and low light is even better + some nice hiding places!
I feed them only twice a week and everybody is happy...
When they grow,they look really powerfull!!!
