Pacu or Piranha ID

[ewurm]

I agree, mouth shape is a dead giveaway.

 

[cichlaguapote]

How important is the tail colour when differentiating between the two? or should i just stick to the head shape?
I checked on piranha-fury.com and it states that the tail colour is also important!

That was the main question.. You guys are sitting here deciding on tail color when it doesn't need to go that far and it's needless to try and figure out when the head even when they're 3" are a dead giveaway.. Now you're breaking it down to activeness being the way to decide what it is...

My only point was you're making it more difficult than it needs to be to decifer pacu or piranha..

 

[santoury]

Maybe we don't need to go that far, but this is exactly what he wanted from us - read your quote (How important is tail color)

But this is needless. I have already answered that...

 

[nolapete]

It's simple. Take fish out put finger in mouth and if it comes out bloody you've got a piranha otherwise it's a pacu. LOL j/k don't do that.

 

[M|L]

I'd say pacus have a much more powerful bite than the piranha.

but a simple search on google for the images of both fish will give you the distinguishing traits.

 

[santoury]

I'll agree with MIL - Pacu eat NUTS in the wild.

 

[sirasoni]

So can/do piranhas...just not very often. I doubt that a 16" pacu would have stronger jaws than a 16" rhom, let alone much stronger.

 

[12 Volt Man]

I used to feed my 18 inch pacu nuts at christmas time.

any of those nuts in the nut assortments thats no one eats, got rinsed and fed to him.

he loved them.

 

[nolapete]

I'm sure that's true as far as bite strength, but it was a joke about the mouthful of razors.

 

[_____]

you can tell by the mouth its a dead giveaway...rbp has an underbite pacus tends to have a overbite