piranha tank questions

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captain.cerezo

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Apr 29, 2008
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I'm going to buy a bunch of baby red bellies and I hope to buy some cariba as tank mates.

The cariba will make the red bellies more aggresive as they are faster and more aggresive and the red bellies will need to compete for food. or at least that is my understanding.

should size the cariba so they are the same as the red bellies or would a little size difference matter? i think the red bellies locally are usually 1 to 2 1/2 inch and the cariba are usually 3 inch.

finally... the hard part is figuring out how many to get. I want to start them in a planted 72gal and then move them to a 210 gal and finally to a 450 or 720-750 (i have the 72 and 210 already) I need to figure out how fast to expect them to grow, obviously the more I feed them the faster they will grow

does anyone have a reasonable idea of the transition period I'd have between the 210 and say 700+ gal tank?
 
you would be better off just starting them in whatever size tank they're going to live in, if you buy enough juvies to stock a huge 700+ gallon tank and try to put them in 72 gallon tank, you're gonna run into problems.

if you really are planning on doing a 700 gallon tank, then i would start your fish off in there or the 210, but if you go with the 210, only get enough fish to comfortably fit in there. natts will reach 6 inches within the first 6 to 8 months and can easily get to 8 inches in the first year if properly cared for, so if you wanna use a grow out tank, after one year, you're gonna want to start thinking about getting them into their permanent home.

i would buy the caribe at a smaller size than the natts, caribe grow much faster and are more aggressive, so if you buy larger caribe, they will dwarf the natts in no time and that might lead to some problems as well.
 
would you consider 8" fully grown? It'll probably be like 6months before I have a 720-750 ready and planted I'm going to be buying the glass in a month or so if I decide to drive and get it I may not get it until August.

How many full grown piranha would you say isn't over crowded for a 720-750? I'd like to have tank mates I want to get some cariba, maybe oscars, - snails, shrimp, plants :P and a pleco for sure?

My friend has a lot of red oscars that are between 1-3 inches I could probably get for free.
 
8 inches is not fully grown, natts should easily get to 10", if you don't wanna overcrowd, you're looking at about 20-30 gallons per adult fish according to the golden rule of not overcrowding, you could probably do between 25 and 30 depening on what size tank you decide on if you want them to have plenty of room in there, although i would probably do more.

tankmates are out of the question, especially oscars. if you are going to commit to a large shoal of pygos, that's all that can go in that tank. oscars will definitely be eaten in no time, snails will probably eventually get picked off, and there is no guarantee with plecos... the smart thing would be to stick with the pygos and when they reach 8" or so, you could try adding some small, fast fish such as neon tetras and zebra danios.
 
hmm

alright :)

so 25-30 = very roomy

I wonder what I'll end up getting

Id definately go at least 720-750gal if im going to start and finish in the same tank I may go as big as 1000. I need to look into that though a 1000gal tank would weigh 10 000lbs ? It would definately go in my basement so that shouldnt be a problem.

30 is impressive but 35-40 would be more impressive. :o

so no oscars, likely no pleco.
I was thinking more like the small snails not applesnails. I've seen them in pet stores in piranha tanks and they multiply like crazy, I put them in all my fresh water tanks and a couple dozen makes a few hundred in a couple months so even if somehow they got picked off faster they than reproduce I could always throw in a hundred whenever I want.

I guess the tank is down to .... plants, red bellies and cariba, tetra/small fast fish, shrimp, snails, plants how about a 8-10 inch red ear slider? lol I've seen them as small as 4" in a tank with arowanas
 
i wouldn't put anything else in there with them, not even a turtle. first off, anything you put in with them will most likely be eaten at some time, and secondly, you are going to have a large shoal of pygos in the tank, you don't need to put anything else in there because nobody will ever look past the shoal to look at something else, haha.
 
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