red bellie and black pacus

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I like pacus, but man...they get insanely BIG. That yellow belly one looks awsome. I wish we would see more of those in the hobby.
 
Oddball said:
It's hard to say why we don't see these. They exist in greater numbers, in the wild and in aquaculture, than the 2 more common species. Fisheries and sports-fishing sites have this species listed as attaining 21" in length and 25lbs. Still a tank-buster species.
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I have never seen one, just the entry in fishbase, even 21" is easier to house than 36" and I really like the looks.
 
guppy said:
Does anyone know why we don't get yellow belly pacu, the caranha, (Piaractus mesopotamicus)? I bet there is a market for them, they only get to 16" and are mainly fruit and nut eaters.
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pretty rare they use to bring alot about 7-8 years ago but now they are so rare not many people know yellow bellied pacus exist.
 
OK, I'm going to go out on a limb here. Oddball, the two fish you posted pictures of are both Red Bellied Pacus. Red bellied Pacus lose all the red as they mature. Black Pacu has a more elongated shape (its almost a straight line between its dorsal fin and head), and its anal fin is also much bigger and looks somewhat exagerrated when compared. I'll do a search and see what I come up with.
 
Unfortunately, there is a lot of bad info and unaccurate pics out there. Ex: in the OPEFE site I pulled up, it stated that the fish only grows to 400mm :ROFL: , these things get huge (4'+).
 
Fried_fish said:
pretty rare they use to bring alot about 7-8 years ago but now they are so rare not many people know yellow bellied pacus exist.
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Wow...really?! I don't remember them at all being in the pet trade. May be they just weren't in California :confused: I've never seen them before so I didn't know they existed. They look cool though. Does the yellow fade out like the reds?
 
benzjamin13 said:
Wow...really?! I don't remember them at all being in the pet trade. May be they just weren't in California :confused: I've never seen them before so I didn't know they existed. They look cool though. Does the yellow fade out like the reds?
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Not as much as the RB pacus. As an adult you should still see some yellow varies with the fish. The one reason why you probably didn't see them in cali because you weren't actually looking for them. Not all petstores will have them but most should in the east coast at least. West coast people get better variety from Asia while east coast people get better variety from s. america
 
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