Hello everyone,

I am thinking of putting some fish in my office. I want to get some Piranhas, its something i have always wanted. Anybody own these badboys or have any expereince with them?

I always had Oscars and they are great, but want something more aggressive and exotic.

Im also interested in the Balloon fish, i saw one at the doctors office today and thought it was neat. For those of you that dont know, its a fish with spines all over its body and when feels threated it sucks water in and inflates to a balloon.

How about Oscar vs. Piranha?

The fish you saw with the splines is a porcupine puffer,not a balloon fish.It is a saltwater fish. I have never owned pirhannas,but my friends have.The bigger the tank,the bigger they grow.You will need to feed them goldfish and if you let them go hungry they will eat each other.GOOD LUCK.

rebenz,

Thanks for the correction on the puffer fish. I liked the one i saw at the dr office, it was just a unique rare fish to see. but since its salt water, i just dont have enough tanks, i dont want my office to look like a pet shop, lol.

As with the Phiranhas i read some websites and these owners are feeding them live mice, red meat, worms, any insects, etc. Has your friend tried any of these feeders?

As far as the goldfish i am not worried cause i get them free, we have thousands of them at our pond so i can just scoop them up and put in a bucket and slowly feed them and get more.

This can make a great investment too, when someone owes me money, i can have my hoodlums hold there head in the fish tank. It would work better and cheaper than a collection agency (JUST KIDDING!)

Hmm I didnt think of that! LOL. Maybe if i change the water more or have some more filters and stuff added it will scoop it up, i can get an undergravel and above gravel filter (2 filters better than I) cause I sure dont want to stick my hand in there, lol.

I am aquarium shopping right now. I am thinking of getting one of those coffee table aquariums that are 40 gallons or get a regular one with stand thats 55 gallon.

Anybody have expereince with the coffee table ones? I found a place where i can order piranhas but will have to get there own tank so my algue eaters and other fishes dont get murdered.

The problem with filters is that they concentrate the smell between changings. Also, in my distant past I was into tropicals in a big way, as was my dad, and found that under gravel filters simply didn’t work well, if at all... They concentrated poop under the gravel and made for some pretty smelly tanks.... Also, I really advise against getting piranha....it will be a passing fancy at most and will likely piss off your co workers....if you care....

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Very true about your comments with the filters. Also with reguards to the smell, if its a coffee table style fish tank, then it would be bad because if we sit coffee or soda or food on top of the table, its going to be hard to eat when the tank right below you smell like crap, lol.

In reguards to my co workers, i own the company so if they dont like it, tough

I always owned oscars so i just want something different unique and aggressive. I know they sell baby sharks, but these are of a differnt family than the great white or anything spectacular. In my honest opinon they look like little catfish to me.

have you heard of a Dragon Fish before? Arowana is what its called in english. They come in red, gold, silver, etc. it looks like an eel (but no electricity) its a very rare and almost extinct fish and the chinese love them. its a symbol for good luck in chinese culture. They very hard to find though, if someone knows where i can get one, let me know.

Out of curiosity, why did you give up tropicals?

Here is a link on the Arowana fish, this is one of the best sites i found so far. My father wants one of these, and i dont know why, was so special aobut a fish to where they have to insert a microchip and have certifications? $900 to $100,000 U.S. dollars for a fish?

http://www.geocities.com/dragon_fish2000/thirdmaindpage.html

I can only assume that you have very little experience with Piranhas. They are not particularly intelligent or interesting, and are actually quite timid by nature, unless they recognize something as a food item. An Oscar in defense of its territory would dispatch just about any Piranha in a matter of minutes. A particular issue with keeping Piranhas is the fact that they are school fish by nature, so unless you intend to house several in a large tank, you'll have paranoid, neurotic fish on your hands.

Ron
http://germanstar.net

silver arrowanas are fairly common to st. louis pet shops.They grow fairly quick and get quite long.a small one will soon need a very long ,wide tank to swim,turn around.I have a 200 gallon Oceanic saltwater set up know,but i have had tropical fish all my life.feel free to ask for advise.I agree with the smelly comment on pirhanas,they require a lot of tank maintenance.If you don't mind investing some major cash,saltwater is the way to go.

Yes I do plan on getting several of them. I heard that they are not good individually and better in small schools. So i would like to get 6 of them but dont know about space in the long run.

Another problem with piranhas i heard so far is that there is no variety in the tank, they will eat the alge eaters, and anything else you put in, including arowanas so i will just have 6 fish that look alike swimming around, the only beaty will be feeding time.

I havnt checked local st. louis pet shops yet. Do you have any that you recomend? Are red or gold arowanas expensive for a baby? like around what price range because these websites make them sound so expensive.

WOW 200 gallons? i would love to have that! but wouldnt have anywhere to put it. i was thinking 55 to 75 is max for the space that i have free. :-(

My $0.02...

Arowanas grow REALLY big. They will quickly outgrow any tank smaller than 1.5 metres in length. They are natives of the Amazon floodplains. I used to work in an aquarium warehouse, we sold them as 10 cm juveniles for about $20 CDN. They are good jumpers, so you'll need a strong cover for the aquarium. Adults usually feed by jumping out of the water and catching insects, etc. on low-lying branches and leaves above the water. They are quite sensitive to water quality as well, so you'll need to keep the water clean and well-filtered.

I'd echo the thoughts on piranhas. They are quite boring most of the time, don't have the personalities the oscars do. I had an oscar in my home tank for over 15 years. When he died, I was surprised how sad I was...he had quite a personality. When I would feed him 10 goldfish, he'd eat 3-5 right away and then leisurely hunt the rest over about a week or so.

As for filtration, I'd recommend a Fluval for tanks over 100 gals, under that a good power filter is best. Undergravel filters don't work well for most tropical tanks.

__________________
Chris
2007 E550 4Matic - 61,000 Km - Iridium Silver, black leather, Sport package, Premium 2 package
2007 GL450 4Matic - 62,000 Km - Obsidian Black Metallic, black leather, all options
1998 E430 - sold
1989 300E - 333,000 Km - sold
1977 280E - sold
1971 250 - retired

"And a frign hat. They gave me a hat at the annual benefits meeting. I said. how does this benefit me. I dont have anything from the company.. So they gave me a hat." - TheDon

I would second the suggestion that Oscars are more interesting than pirahnas (my daughter adores her pair of Oscars a great deal - they will now eat from our hands and, like our dog, are always happy to see us).

My fishkeeping has been directed towards Discus. I have a very large tank which is populated by a number of large discus (mostly red turquoise and blue cobalt) a number of different tetras (black neons, rummy nose, etc) and some cory cats. The tank is quite beautiful.

As for filtration, I find that for messy fish, such as my daughter's Oscars, a combination of an internal filter (I think there's a Fluval 4 in there) in combination with an air-driven sponge filter provides good cleanup. Still, frequent vacuumings and water changes are required.

My discus tank is cleansed by a wet-dry filter system, backed up by a UV sterilizer and a canister filter which has diatom filter capability. I do vacuumings once every 2 weeks and change 25% of the water along with the cleanings.

Neither of the tanks has any odor. The Discus tank stands in my dining room. Always gets lots of comments from guests. Especially when I'm serving grilled Ahi or sushi.

Here's food for thought (pardon the pun). Spending time each day observing an aquarium has been discovered through research to have the effect of lowering blood pressure. I know it helps me after a particularly ridiculous day to go home and spend some time feeding and watching the fish and brushing my dog.

__________________
David

His:
2003 Dodge Durango SLT
2002 BMW E39 530i Sport
1988 Mercedes 300TE
Hers:
2003 Chevrolet Suburban
1999 E430

I would second the suggestion that Oscars are more interesting than pirahnas (my daughter adores her pair of Oscars a great deal - they will now eat from our hands and, like our dog, are always happy to see us).

My fishkeeping has been directed towards Discus. I have a very large tank which is populated by a number of large discus (mostly red turquoise and blue cobalt) a number of different tetras (black neons, rummy nose, etc) and some cory cats. The tank is quite beautiful.

As for filtration, I find that for messy fish, such as my daughter's Oscars, a combination of an internal filter (I think there's a Fluval 4 in there) in combination with an air-driven sponge filter provides good cleanup. Still, frequent vacuumings and water changes are required.

My discus tank is cleansed by a wet-dry filter system, backed up by a UV sterilizer and a canister filter which has diatom filter capability. I do vacuumings once every 2 weeks and change 25% of the water along with the cleanings. The wet-dry filter is the best method of complete filtration available, providing all three types of necessary filtration (biological, mechanical and I forget the third - chemical?). It is much like a municipal water treatment plant, where the water drips over bio-media containing bacteria which break down the impurities in the water. My filter is somewhat noisy - it sounds like a small waterfall. It is a retrofit to an acrylic aquarium. There are tank manufacturers who make systems where the wet-dry filter is built into the tank; I assume these systems are quieter.

Neither of the tanks has any odor unless you get up really close and stick your nose close to the water. The Discus tank stands in my dining room and always gets lots of positive comments from guests. The tone of the comments changes when I serve grilled Ahi or sushi.

Here's food for thought (pardon the pun). Spending time each day observing an aquarium has been discovered through research to have the effect of lowering blood pressure. I know it helps me after a particularly ridiculous day to go home and spend some time feeding and watching the fish and brushing my dog.

__________________
David

His:
2003 Dodge Durango SLT
2002 BMW E39 530i Sport
1988 Mercedes 300TE
Hers:
2003 Chevrolet Suburban
1999 E430

I had Piranha's and I hated seeing feeder fish floating around with their guts hanging out. The Piranha's just would not eat the rest. I stopped feeding them, thinking they would finish up the half alive feeder fish. No such luck, they just chewed each others tails off. What a mess, what a stink, what a bother.

I released them in a creek,
Don't worry, they are warm water fish and probably died in the winter. They were fairly small and could not really have injured a human.

They are definitely not like in the movies.

We had Piranhas in our tank here at the dorm. They were cool to watch everyone once and a while. If they weren't eating though, they just sat around. They went belly up. We then bought Tiger Oscars. They grow much faster, and are much more active. Plus, when you want the carnage, they will eat feeder fish. We put two male betas in the tank just to see what would happen. The Oscars ended up eating the Betas before there was any fight