pacu's go here?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
yeah all we got is petsmart and petco. they absolutely dont accept any fish and you cant special order anything, although they have a nice selection if your going for a community. but petland that i go to is like saltwater heaven, they sell all kinds of live rock and coral along with big saltwater acrylic tanks. i am saddened to know that i could have kept piranhas in the tank i have now :( but at least they accept fish as a donation, no store credit, but nice if something gets too big for its tank. too bad my tank doesnt really have anything by the way of monsterfish that would get along with its tankmates. 15 black skirt tetras and a marbled veil angel. although i do have a ten gallon tank that is cycled. ideas?
 
yea a good rule of thumb for rbps is 20 gallons per fish so you could put 10 in a 200 galon and pleco if u wanted
 
If you like the look if the Pacu,did you ever see Red Hook Silved Dollars. They will stay smaller and you could have a pack of them in a large tank..
 
i will prolly be doing several setups of 180g tanks. so ill prolly have about 8 in that tank. i was also going to do a malawi tank (180g as well) and an angelfish community (180g, thinking around 15 angels and prolly some pictus cats). when i start looking for a house i was going to look for something with many outlets and a tap water faucet inside the house (my house the tap is outside, freezes every winter, lack of water changes.... past....). also the possibility to custom building a home would bring this option as well.

p.s. is a flowthrough system available for multiple tanks? a tap water source inside would make this task much much easier than doing water changes. i can draw up a picture of what im thinking about if need be.
 
so you're gonna do a 180 with piranhas?

i know that flow through systems have worked for some people, but they always make me nervous because of the risk of spreading disease and parasites throughout your entire tank system. i just don't like the idea of a problem in one tank being spread to every other tank. i have seen some plans for auto water change and top off systems where they were all run on the same system yet there was no flow from one tank to the next, so a problem in one tank would still be isolated... that would be something that i would consider doing in the future.
 
good point there. if i was going to do flow through systems i could do individual ones for each tank. i like the idea of not having to deal with water changes though, as for water changes there i would be setting up a trough with a sponge filter to filter out alot of water to do changes, and a flow through would be much easier on the fish and me back :) i was thinking that i might do a smaller saltwater setup along with the 180's, or possibly just do another 180 for saltwater. in regards to the 180 with piranhas i would do 8 just to give space. ive considered fully getting one BIG tank for pacu's, but to me i tghink id get more out of several 180's with nice setups, and itd still cost less than pacu's in a big tank. and i also thought about getting an arowana as part of this room setup, but i think its tank would be too big and would tank too much advantage of the space. but id like to get a flow through or something that does a constant water change, put me out of alot of stress. i can get a picture back to you later of my idea. cuz if i got that big of a tank, im out of options right there, i get like 2 pacu's and bam, im done, no more room for other fish. and no more room for other tanks as well........ i really think that if i drew it out it would make more sense. posting picture later. tell me what you think of it joe.

p.s. im nowhere near downers grove, i am, but itd be like an hour and half drive or so :( im not sure if that lfs would special order for me or not, they might, but i havent asked them yet. another will do
 
right on man, sounds like you've got the right idea, i'll see if i can find any of the plans for the auto systems that i was talking about that still keeps all of the tanks separate.

if i was doing a 180 with pygos, i would put at least 15 in there, especially if i was planning on setting up an auto water change system. obviously it's up to you, but i think you'd do alot better with avoiding aggression in the tank if you had it overstocked as opposed to having only 8 in there.
 
righto. got you there. ill draw up a picture of what i vision in about a half hour, not home right now..... but a continuous water change system would be amazing. the prianhas my lfs sells are about 3 to 4 inches btw.
 
heres a very rough drawing of what i was thinking. if i had my camera i wouldve drawn it by hand and taken a picture, but this is the best i could come up with. i think it would look very organized in this format.

fish room.JPG
 
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