red-bellied pacu

[equidae9854]

My friend has a red-bellied pacu that she wants me to eventually "adopt" for my future 125 gal, but I'm not sure I want it cuz I'm afraid it'll be agressive towards my other fish.

I found this online, and was wondering if it's really ok to keep them in ponds.
"They grew to 33 cm before we put them in his 20,000 liter pond about two months ago. They are about 45 cm now and are living with Koi, large goldfish and a lot of mosquito fish."
http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_pacu2.php

[fishboy]

pacus are large fruit eating cousins of piranna. They do need very large tanks 125 gallons may not cut it

[Scuba Kid]

nope. a 125 is definitely too small small for a pacu.

[flamingo]

I wouldn't do it. Most people suggest 300 gallon minimum but that is still highly unsuitable.

They are very large creatures that can reach up to 36 inches (never really stop growing actually) and are very messy eaters.

I would really only recommend one for very large ponds or like a very very very large aquarium with excellent filtration. I once had one a while back and it literally wrecked my tank. It eventually got too big and killed itself by freaking out and smacking the side of the tank and I had to restart th whole tank over because of the mess it made. THey also eat you out of house and home. Mine would eat a bag of wardley algae tabs every wekk plus a handful of kale, spinach, lettuce, and grapes. They need a lot of varie dfoods and a lot of it. Overall they are fat monsters.... very beautiful creatures but just get way too big.

[RockabillyChick]

those are 6" silverdollars and a 12" oscar.....those pacus are a god 3 feet long.

and for good measure, here is a story from another forum about someones expirience with pacus.

It is with a very heavy heart that I post this thread. I also hope that it serves as a lesson to anyone wanting to keep certain types of fish without first doing ALL OF THE RESEARCH pertaining to tank size accomodations, the maximum size the fish will reach at adulthood, etc. I purchase 2 Red-belly Pacu's from Petco 9 months ago. They were no bigger than if you put your middle and thumb finger together to form an 'O' I bought them home and first placed them in a 20 gallon tank. They flourished there, along with baby GT's and Oscars. 2 months later, the Pacu's, along with the Oscars, had to be moved to a 55 gallon tank because of rapid growth. At this point, the Pacu's had grown to small tea saucer size. Each week, they appeared to grow at least half an inch to an inch. The growth rate of these fish can be EXTREMELY RAPID, especially if water changes are frequent. In my case, I was changing between 30 - 50% each week. At the end of the 4th month, these fish had grown so large, I had to purchase a 120 Gallon tank to house them. At this point, size limitations in my home prevented me from buying anything larger. Within 4 months, these fish had reached 18 inches in length and were physically stronger than any fish I've ever dealt with. They were literally moving huge rocks with the current they created when swimming at break-neck speed through the tank. Each day when I awoke, I had to keep adding water to the tank due to the HUGE amount of water that was splashed onto the walls and floors by them. I began going around to various LFS trying to see if anyone would take them and no one wanted to touch these fish. After 2 months of trying to find homes for them went unsuccessfully, I had no choice than to humanely put them down. I chose the quickest method available to me for fish this large. I wrestled them out of the tank, one by one. In the process, the smaller of the two, managed to take out my 32 inch television by sending a huge splash of water onto it with a swipe of his tail. I wrapped them in newspaper and used a cinderblock dropped from the third step onto it's head. Death was instant. I was very fond of these fish and because of my lack of research when I first purchased them, I had to put down two very beautiful fish. I would like for anyone reading this post to learn from my tragic mistake. Pacu's need at LEAST 300 gallons of water to thrash around in. If you can't furnish that for them, or some type of large pond, LEAVE THESE FISH IN THE STORE!!

[Georgia Peach]

wow, they really should not sell these in stores like Petco and PetSmart. Just imagine how many unsuspecting people have purchased these!

[Fishfirst]

you have NO idea... especially with the idiotic people who sell these fish. I've seen at least 20 pacus get sold dispite my advisement... its too bad they aren't the only tank busters petsmart and petco sell.

[flamingo]

Ya, you should see them in walmart in point fishfirst!

They had at least 20 when I was there adn they even had a baby pirahna there that was labeled a pacu ( a very reliable place to get your fish from lmao). They even said pacus get only about 10 inches. I wanted so badly to write ah heck no! they get WAY bigger than that and stick it up on the wall.

Btw FF, got my ghost shrimp lol. Sadly I had to buy them from walmart (the wrost one that I have ever been to).

[redpaulhus]

Agreed.
What's worse is the 5+ customers a week who are angry with me for NOT carrying pacu or recommending that they not put pacu in their 55g tank... I work in a chain store, the chain carries tankbuster's but my store doesn't - pacu, IR sharks, marine sharks, etc are all 'available' but we refuse to order them without evidence that they are going to an appropriate tank (which isn't often).

[Fishfirst]

lol now the new tags at petsmart tell people that a pacu will be fine in a 30 gallons or bigger aquarium... WHAT A JOKE!

[Meeocky]

Wow I had no idea they go that big. I didn
t do any research on they yet but I did want to make a 55gal Pacu tank with about 5 or so in the future. Although I would've probably found this out already if I would've did some research, but thanks for this thread. I won't do this.