ajm

Picked him up from Manchester yesterday, 10" Pygocentrus Nattereri Ternetzi variant (yellow belly) natural to Southern Brazil and Northern Argentina.

He wrote off two nets transferring him into the fish box to transport him and a third getting him into my tank at the other end!!!

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Previous Threads for Reference:
Clip of my new baby psychos!
Venezuelan Piranha.... my new psychos!

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

Cute

Brendan Hughes

"Here kitty kitty kitty..."

tmo

Just had a look through the other threads, very very interesting
nice one

Richard Askew

Ugly little ******* aint he?

ajm

Thanks, I'm pretty chuffed with him actually... he must be one of the largest Ternetzi's in the UK!

The previous owner named him Lecter because he ate one of his tankmates, so I'm going to have to keep a careful eye on him!

You may also be interested in a programme on Channel Five 20:00 on Tuesday "Nigel Marven's Piranha Adventure" which is IMO one of the best and factually accurate documentaries on piranha, definately moreso than the American sensationlised "Piranha Attack" which has been repeated several times recently. This one definately benefits from the "British touch".

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

No **** Sherlock

Jap2Scrap

Can you get him to hold a matchbox for scale purposes?

PG

I was going to give you a shout on that prog. when I saw it advertised last night ajm.
I know I will be watching, looks good.

ajm

LOL! I was thinking that when I took the photo (the 1st photo was taken by the previous owner). I was going to try and get my hand in shot for scale but decided against it for obvious reasons!


You want him to hold a match box? YOU ask him!

Edit: you can see the scale relative to when my reds were babies compare the size of the gravel in the second picture above to the gravel in this pic:

http://www.piranha-fury.com/photopos...august2003.jpg

Its the same gravel!

ScoobywagonGl

Aww nice one AJM i think he looks quite cute! think he will mix well with my male guppy .... maybe not

messiah

Now that is what I call a bad boy...

Always wanted Piranha when when I was younger... do you reckon he's be okay in a community tank with cardinal tetra's?

How big a tank have you got him in?

ajm

He's a bit cramped in a 40 gal. currently, until I get my monster tank sorted! He has been enjoying a 100gal to himself since he murdered his one remaining tankmate!

Hence, I am having to keep him on his own until I have a tank big enough to accomodate his cannabalistic territorial tendancies without having to eat any of my existing shoal!

As for the tetras.... the previous owner had a dozen or so danios in his tank originally.... I counted just one yesterday! I would imagine tetras would be Lecter's "scampi waiting to happen"!

super_si

awesome do you keep them all in the same tank then?

Curious how expensive and what conditions they need?

Si

ajm

I am hoping to keep them all in the same tank. You need to be careful to mix the right species, otherwise disaster will occur. Even with compatible species fighting still occurs, usually due to territory or fighting for space. I am keeping the new one on his own for the time being because the main tank is already pretty full and he is considerably bigger than any of the others.

I am planning to commission a huge tank to try and keep them all together. Despite the bickering a shoal is a more natural situation for them and they seem to be happier together getting nipped occasionally than being on their own!

The cost is entirely dependent on the size and rarity of the fish. 1" baby red bellies can cost as little as £3 whereas a 10" Rhom could be £250+. A 16" manueli could be several hundred quid!

Conditions as per any tropical fish. Around 81 degress F and pristine water conditions! As piranha are such messy eaters with such high metabolisms you need a *lot* of mechanical and biological filtration on the tank. They prefer lighting that isn't too harsh and enjoy a good bit of current in tank but with still areas where they can chill.

super_si

wicked

Do you often taken them out of the tank?

had any mishaps?

Si

mad_dr

Is your current tank sumped mate?

messiah

would a protein skimmer be much use then or are they for marine tanks only? (Assuming Piranha is freshwater that is!)

ajm

No, I handle them as little as possible because they do go absolutely mental and get stressed out big time! It will probably be a few days before the new fish eats simply because of the stress of the journey.

No accidents so far, although I have had a few close shaves and several destroyed nets! A caribe tried to jump out of a bucket as I was looking into it and he bounced off my nose!

super_si

lol thats scary

ajm

Current tank is running off two large external cannister filters. The new tank will have a sump that I will make out of a 4 ft tank similar to reef setups. This will be a much more efficient and cheaper way of getting the biological capacity than buying the several large cannister filters it will require!

Not really necessary in a fresh water aquarium. They are used primarily to conserve water in a saltwater aquarium by removing particles from the water before it is broken down by bacteria in the filter and converted to salts that cannot be readily removed from the water. Thus making smaller water changes possible.

In a freshwater aquarium you can let organic compounds be broken down as it is much easier and cheaper to change fresh water.

Apart from that, I don't think they would be as efficient in a freshwater aquarium as I believe they rely on buoyancy due to the higher density of saltwater.

Andy Porter

My bro had 5 red bellies in his 6th by 2ft by 2ft tank, miserable buggers they were, seemed ok then we came back from the pub one night and the tank was blood red, two of them had absolutely annihiliated the other 4, two were still alive with their spines exposed I'm glad we were pissed fishing them out to finish them off

ajm

Nightmare!

I am really surprised that happened with only 5 reds in a 180gal tank! How big were they?

Edited to add: was there anything else in the tank? The water shouldn't have been red, piranha hardly bleed at all when injured for obvious reasons!

Andy Porter

No there was nothing else in there m8, it was an absolute mess I can tell you. The two that lived were big, like about 6 or 8 inches long, I'll try and get a pic.....

Andy Porter

Pic is big sorry no time to resize,

http://pics.fotango.com/pictures/0400643257_001P.jpg

ajm

Pic not working?

Shark

Jye

What his 'pet' name

ajm

Here is a picture of guzzle-guts next to a Nokia 6310 for scale!

Click Me!


We have had a couple of setbacks so far:

1) when he was first in the tank he was quite nervous and had a few tantrums knocking the heater off the side and dislodging the filter inlet! In the process he actually broke the heater!! I only noticed the next day when I stuck my hand in to drop some sandeel in for him and the water felt cold. It had actually dropped from 27deg C to 18deg C!!! He wasn't showing any undue signs of stress, but it was lucky I noticed because I think if it had got much lower it could have been bad news!

2) Since he has started eating (and pooing) in earnest again the resulting surge in excreted ammonia caused a spike as there is always a delay in the multiplication of nitrifying bacteria in the filter. I have managed this by small water changes. Ammonia is almost back down to zero, and now we are in the middle of a nitrite spike, the second phase of the cycle. Again, I am managing this with small water changes so levels don't get harmfully high. Whilst this saves the fish any undue stress it does prelong the the time required for the bacteria to catch up unfortunately.

It is actually alarming how much food this fish can tuck away, he has a tardis belly! However I am trying to ration him for his own good until there is enough bacteria present in the filter to cope with his "ablutions"!

ajm

here's a clip of him hoovering up his third whole 5" sandeel a minute ago!!!

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