It's not the owners fault when they don't know what they are getting into when they buy pacu. I'm certain that my pacu came out of a tank with this sign.
The baby pacu were so cute and so much smaller than the baby oscars
By the time my husband made his mother of all yard sale purchases, the two 15" pacu, four 9" oscars and two 12" pleco were quite crowded in their dirty 55 gallon WalMart tank. The pacu had difficulty turning in that 12" wide tank.
Even when researching pacu after they came into our lives, the ONE pacu forum I found had moderators with 2-yr-old pacus in 75 gallon tanks. I believe the owner and founder of the forum also had a 75 gallon tank. The pacu forum had a huge enthusiastic membership of novice fishkeepers who were completely clueless about the real needs of pacu. The only member who had an adequate setup for pacu was Pacu Lady who built a 3240 gallon tank for her pacu.
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?90760-PACU&p=1554311&viewfull=1#post1554311
When two moderators' pacu suddenly died at two years, the forum was basically over. I suspect the forum owner's pacu had also died by then. There really isn't much accurate information on pacu. Most fish sites state that pacu need large tanks. What is that supposed to mean? A 75 gallon tank is large compared to a 10 gallon tank, and if pacu grow to 10", why not buy a few of them... I was horrified when an asian resturant in our small town set up a 29 gallon tank with 7 pacu and five oscars. I talked to the manager at WalMart who handled the fish section. He knew the tank at the resturant. I showed him a picture of a pacu that I had captioned, and he said they would no longer sell pacu.
Very unfortunately, our WalMart is undergoing a major expansion over another 1 1/2 years. I recently walked into a small petstore that opened in the last year and found a ton of baby pacu in a 10 gallon tank. The guy said they were doing a brisk business selling pacu now that WalMart no longer has fish during their building/expansion. I whipped out my smartphone and showed him pictures of my pacu in an attempt to educate him. His eyes glazed over and he yawned as if I was distracting him from his boredom. You can bet that store will never see a penny from me.
The blame rests solely on the vendors who sell pacu. There just isn't enough accurate information on the true needs of pacu. I am convinced that good water parameters are important in pacu keeping. I believe the sudden deaths of pacu at age two is due to sky high nitrates. We could not keep decent water parameters in that micro 55 gallon tank except by doing massive daily water changes. When there was nitrites present, the pacu would gasp and would only quit gasping after we replaced 60 gallons of water (15 gallons at a time)
My observation is that pacu will die in about two years in small tanks with bad water parameters. If you want pacu to live to their full potential of 30+ years, the pacu have to be housed in a tank big enough where excellent water parameters can be maintained.
