my 300gallon Piranha tank...

[jones]

hey guys, thought i'd introduce my setup...

my custom 300gallon (96"x30"x24"high), with DIY stand, just needs a canopy for it... ill make it one day. hahah

http://www.massiveaggression.ca/pics/300gal1fulla.jpg

and the gang:
http://www.massiveaggression.ca/pics/300gal4a.jpg

http://www.massiveaggression.ca/pics/300gal5a.jpg

and my 40gallon Cariba tank:
http://www.massiveaggression.ca/pics/cariba1a.jpg

and one of the little fellahs chillin out...
http://www.massiveaggression.ca/pics/cariba2a.jpg

all the best...
jones

[Melody]

That's incredible! Now I get to pick your brain...lol....I don't keep aggressives so I know very little about them.

So piranhas can be kept together, but not with other fish? Do they ever bite you? We could sell your story to the Tabloids if you'd just let them chew on your hand for a bit. We could use the exposure, come on, be a team player :laugh: .

Thanks for posting the pic's!

[jones]

thanks melody...

when i first got into piranha keeping, it was deffinitaly their reputation that drew me in... sharks and piranhas have been mega cool since about kindergarden, hahaha

but now i have come to appreciate them on a much greater level,
Piranhas are deffinitally not the killers they are made out to be, in the wild they pretty much keep the amazon rivers clean and most of the meals they eat are of animals that have already passed for other reasons or just smaller fish... so they act more like a hyena cleaning up the afraican dessert than the monsterious attacking fish they are made out to be...

personally i have never fed my piranhas any live food, and i think thats why i have better success keeping them in larger groups... they know when its feeding time and they get plunty to eat, no need to turn on eachother, hahah
but it does happen from time to time deffinitally, i lost one of my smaller plecos actually a few months back, :(

you can keep certian species of piranhas together, the red bellys and other pygo's can be kept together quite easily with a good feeding routine and a tank of at least 55gallon... smaller babies can be kept in temperary smaller tanks for awhile, they grow pretty darn quick thou, haha
the serrasalmus piranhas you really only want to keep solo, as they are MEGA vicious and will eat everything in the tank as they get pretty territorial...

reds can be kept with plecos and convics, heres my pleco in the 300gal, he has been doing quite well and has lived with piranhas all his life...
http://www.massiveaggression.ca/pics/300gal6a.jpg

he knows how to play it cool with the piranhas, haha,

and no i have never been bit... in fact they dont appreciate me stickin my hands in the aquarium too much, they run and hide and wont come out for an hour or so when its waterchange time or the plants need trimming...

so once i get that canopy made and the proper lighting in there, im really going to fill the tank with plants :)

thanks again
jones

cheers

[Melody]

You should adopt Mr. CACAdmin's Plecos - they're going to be big enough to make a Piranha think before they bite. The problem would be growing them out to a size that could handle them I suppose.

You've completely ruined their rep you know....lol....they're going to be upset with you for that.

We're glad to have you and them provide us with some diversity. The best way to get people into what you're into is to talk about it, so I hope we see lots of posts from you. Maybe an intro article :D .

[jones]

id love to do up an introductory artical to piranha keeping for the site from my own experiances with the shoal, and as they grow of course...
:)

i didnt ruin the rep, just watch that cheezy 80's movie "Piranha" again, hahahahah

[mixixe]

wow you've totally changed my perception of pirhanas :) thanks for all that info. They seem like really interesting and even nice creatures now :) and they are beautiful.

[blainep]

Great shots, great looking tank, great looking fish !
:thumbup:

[jones]

wow you've totally changed my perception of pirhanas thanks
for all that info. They seem like really interesting and even nice creatures now and they are beautiful.

they deffinitally have some personality to them once they come out of their shells...

they take food right out of my fingers when i put it in the tank, its super cool to feel them grab it out of your hands, they are pretty powerful little creatures, when my 8" guy gets hungry he comes right to the surface almost, the last few times now i pretty much have been dropping food into an open piranha mouth that rests just below the surface...

this tank has only been up and running for about a month now holding them... setup time was long, but well worth it!!!, so they are just getting using to their new home and each one is still claiming their little spot of territory to hang out in...

heres a Video i made on transport day...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu4Igwp4eQY
also it has a quick shot of my 100gallon setup, the tank they were all growing up in...

Great shots, great looking tank, great looking fish !
:thumbup:

thanks again...
more pix as they grow up :)

all the best
jones

[CACAdmin]

they take food right out of my fingers when i put it in the tank, its super cool to feel them grab it out of your hands, they are pretty powerful little creatures, when my 8" guy gets hungry he comes right to the surface almost, the last few times now i pretty much have been dropping food into an open piranha mouth that rests just below the surface...

I think I would be just a concerned about keeping all my fingers...lol.:wideeyed:

You said you don't feed them live food. I was wondering what their diet consists of ... and how often you feed them.


heres a Video i made on transport day...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu4Igwp4eQY
also it has a quick shot of my 100gallon setup, the tank they were all growing up in...

Great video. Thanks for posting the link. It's neat to watch them.:cool:

[jones]

haha, nah, i keep my fingers out of the water and just dangle the food in... they know better, hahaha

they get a diet of krill shrimp, large shrimp, earthworms, fish fillets(cod, cat fish, sole, pretty much any white meat fish, this consists of about 70% of their diet), beefheart, scallops, and im going to start feeding them boiled chicken im thinkin...

they eat about once a day, and i skip a feeding once a week...

i cut everything up in small bite size chunks to avoid the mess they can make with a big chunk of meat, keeps the tank a bit cleaner... but with 16 of them in there, not too much food gets left over...

thanks for the props on the vid... i need to get a feeding video but my camera seems to be on the rocks... i think it just needs a new battery pack thou... anywho... ones comin sooner or later... haha

cheers
jones

[Melody]

...fish fillets(cod, cat fish, sole, pretty much any white meat fish, this consists of about 70% of their diet), beefheart, scallops, and im going to start feeding them boiled chicken im thinkin...

I'd stick to the seafood and beefheart - other meat has fats that are very difficult for fish to digest. You can feed me chicken though - I love the stuff:laugh: . Then again, if they eat it in the wild then I suppose their system would be designed to handle it... intriguing angle on that line of thinking actually. Most carnivores never see mammal fat. It would be interesting to have some sort of scientific data that proves Piranhas have some way of handling it that other carnivores don't have. Sorry, thinking outloud.

Do you just get your seafood right from the grocery store and feed it? Someone said that the grocery store stuff is brushed with preservatives but I have no idea if that's the case or not. I've never tried it but I know some who have.

[jones]

yeah, birds falling into shallow pools are what keeps them threw the dry seasons... so poultry is part of their natural diet, sure not canadian chickens, but whatever, i figure a bit of chicken wouldnt hurt, i know other piranha keepers that feed them it with great success...

and about the seafood, i get pretty quality stuff from a local grocery store, i do find that sometime when i buy cheaper sea foods a blue/white haze comes off the fish when it hits water, even after its washed off real well... especially cheap scallops, thats the worst... but i find just stay away from the dirt cheap seafood and stick with more quality stuff and you should be ok... im still on the look out for a good supplier of fish, i do live of the coast for cryin out loud, hahahaha

but the key thing with these guys is a well round diet, and good 30-40% weekly waterchanges, but really... those are the guidelines for any loved fish...


all the best

[Melody]

Well now I want to go shopping for seafood! What I'd like to do is blend a bunch up and freeze it. Buying the little frozen packages of cubes gets very expensive. I've always wanted to try it in my homemade foods too, but I'll have to test that on my own fish before I distribute it.

I had no idea that they were so unique. This is the kind of thing that makes me wonder why people think that one food is good for all fish, from herbivores right up to your chicken-loving Piranhas ;) .

You're more familiar with the terminology than I am - what should a section be labelled which covers aggressives in general, including Cichlids right up to Piranhas? I was thinking of proposing the idea of modifying the Cichlid forum to include them, but I want to get the name/terminology right so it encompasses the group we're targeting.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my incessant questions!

[jones]

ill try and think something up for that...

actually there are some of the solo piranha species that eat fruit and seeds and small insects, taking the occasional fin nip here and there off whatever they can get the jump on... but yeah, gotta respect the little fellahs for keeping the amazon rivers clean, its a pretty important job... hahah
i could go on and on about how much i love these little fellahs thou... hahah

yeah, going to grocery stores is always better than buyin cubed food, its mostlikely fresher, although i dont have to prepare anything really, i just cut it in smaller pieces and they do the rest of the food processing, haha, with beefheart i go to the local butchers and get a full heart for like 10bux, it fills up like a full ziploc freezer bag after i cube it up and lasts forever... deffinitaly has saved me some bux...

oh yeah, and ill edit this later, but i cant send PM's for some reason... hhahaha, help :err: hahaha i'd send you a pm about it melody, but... hahaha

[Melody]

I think that's a permissions thing - another sponsor couldn't find it either so the problem just clicked when you mentioned it. The sponsor group is new so its probably just been missed. I'll send a note to Mr. CACAdmin. Thanks for letting me know - no need to edit, fish poo happens ;) .

[jones]

haha, thanks... i got it back now...

thanks for checkin that out... :laugh:

[CACAdmin]

I think that's a permissions thing - another sponsor couldn't find it either so the problem just clicked when you mentioned it. The sponsor group is new so its probably just been missed. I'll send a note to Mr. CACAdmin. Thanks for letting me know - no need to edit, fish poo happens ;) .

haha, thanks... i got it back now...

thanks for checkin that out... :laugh:

Melody is perfectly correct... I missed a detail in the permissions of our Sponsors group. My sincere apologies. Glad you brought it to our attention so I could fix it ASAP. :yes:
Now you can PM me your demands...lol (sorry my Platys are not available as tasty snacks for your Piranhas :wideeyed: ). However, you did mention introducing chicken so I was wondering if they are getting turkey dinner for Christmas?

[jones]

ah ahahah, turkey dinner for the piranhas... thats hallarious...

but who knows they might get a boiled turkey neck, hahaha, cuz really, who else wants to eat the turkey neck? hahaha

all the best and have a great time cellebrating whatever it is everyone cellebrates best this time a year, just be safe and happy...

rock on
jones

ps, and thanks again for fixin the problem, i thought it was something i did for a second there, hahaha

[BC_Kron]

WOW. I really don't know what else to say. Awesome pics. I love the aggressive fish, but I've already got so much on the go.(Nandus Nandus is number 1 on my wish list) but the piranah are sooooooo cool. Great fish, keep the pics coming.


cheers;
Bill

[jones]

thanks Kron...
heres a few more pix of the cariba...
they got a really good waterchange a few days ago...

[Melody]

If you people keep this up I'm going to need a much bigger house....

[Pamelajo]

Great pics, love your stand.

[Melody]

Piranhas are deffinitally not the killers they are made out to be, in the wild they pretty much keep the amazon rivers clean and most of the meals they eat are of animals that have already passed for other reasons or just smaller fish... so they act more like a hyena cleaning up the afraican dessert than the monsterious attacking fish they are made out to be...

Just in case you haven't seen this already, it is another eye-opener about Paranhas. Interesting read, including some case studies on bit humans.

The truth about piranha attacks (http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=1180)
Practical Fishkeeping Magazine