# Getting A Serrasalmus Rhombeus (white Piranha)



## Sylar_92 (Dec 15, 2010)

A few years back before I started keeping Piranhas, I visited a relative who had 5 white piranhas together in a 150 gallon community tank. My question is, Is it possible to keep Rhoms together like that? most people I talked to including store owners highly recommend keeping only 1. My uncle's Rhoms were at least 4" and were in good shape. I also think he mentioned something about only one of them were a male.


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2010)

It is recommended to keep them solo. Only experienced keepers should attempt a co-hab and usually it ends in the seperation of fish, serious injury and or death. Looking to purchase a Rhom?? I have a 15" Rhom for sale if interested, just PM me.


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## Sylar_92 (Dec 15, 2010)

ksls said:


> It is recommended to keep them solo. Only experienced keepers should attempt a co-hab and usually it ends in the seperation of fish, serious injury and or death. Looking to purchase a Rhom?? I have a 15" Rhom for sale if interested, just PM me.










Thanx for the offer but I was actually trying to find a smaller one. Someone told me to check Dragon Aquarium up by Dundas and across BigAl's. they said they saw a bunch of size diffs in terms of selection of S.Rhombeus.


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## BRUNER247 (Jun 2, 2010)

IMO it could work with the right fish, dithers, right tank, & the right keeper but like ksls says exspirenced keepers only should attempt it as it could turn very ugly very quickly. Also I highly doubt your uncle knew only one was a male. Most keepers can't even tell the differences between sexes of rbp without them spawning. & to say a rhom is a male or female on fish that has only spawned in captivity a couple times is just crazy.


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## Johnny_Zanni (Nov 8, 2009)

BRUNER247 said:


> IMO it could work with the right fish, dithers, right tank, & the right keeper but like ksls says exspirenced keepers only should attempt it as it could turn very ugly very quickly. Also I highly doubt your uncle knew only one was a male. Most keepers can't even tell the differences between sexes of rbp without them spawning. & to say a rhom is a male or female on fish that has only spawned in captivity a couple times is just crazy.


Exactly^

It is impossible to look at any type of piranha and tell weather its male or female without spawning activity.


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## BRUNER247 (Jun 2, 2010)

I can tell difference in adult rbp, Idk bout 100%, 100% of the time.but I've pieced together pairs several times with no problems.


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## Johnny_Zanni (Nov 8, 2009)

BRUNER247 said:


> I can tell difference in adult rbp, Idk bout 100%, 100% of the time.but I've pieced together pairs several times with no problems.


This is during/after they have spawned right?


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## Inflade (Mar 24, 2006)

Dragon is over priced. Big als Kitchener just got about a half dozen rhoms.

and Torskeys aquatic zoo has some nice rhoms as well (guelph ontario).


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## BRUNER247 (Jun 2, 2010)

No I've pieced them together. Picked out male one place & female out at different place & time you have enough rbp spawn in front of you & spend enough time with rbp you can tell the difference(in adults anyhow). I'm sure there's always that one that'll be the exception,but there is a noticeable difference between M&F rbp.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

Sylar_92 said:


> A few years back before I started keeping Piranhas, I visited a relative who had 5 white piranhas together in a 150 gallon community tank. My question is, Is it possible to keep Rhoms together like that? most people I talked to including store owners highly recommend keeping only 1. My uncle's Rhoms were at least 4" and were in good shape. I also think he mentioned something about only one of them were a male.


Possible possibly, advisable no. What happend to your uncles rhoms? As for sexing there is no known way to sex rhoms accurately besides cutting them open so the group of p's was probably a couple males and a couple females. Also even if you had any idea how to sex a rhom i doubt it would be done on a 4" fish.

I beleive reds can be somewhat sexed as adults if you have rasied them but unless you have them breed or cut them open you can't say for sure. Though i think there are some differences in male and female p's i dont think it would be any more then mayby a 55-70% depending on whos doing it. There may be some indications but nothing solid enough to really call it an accurate way to sex p's as most people dont know what a guranteed male or female look like so they cant even begin to guess

I wouldn't even try to guess for fish that you bought as adults as you dont really know anythign about their past history and they could of been stunted or something.


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## BRUNER247 (Jun 2, 2010)

Maybe after you keep a few dozen more adult rbp & they spawn for you a couple hundred more times, you can tell the differences too cluster.least better than 50-70%. Hell I'm up to at least 98%.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

BRUNER247 said:


> Maybe after you keep a few dozen more adult rbp & they spawn for you a couple hundred more times, you can tell the differences too cluster.least better than 50-70%. Hell I'm up to at least 98%.


 How are you figuring 98% as unless you can prove every one is the sex you say (guessing before you know for sure) you can't even estimate as the ones you can't prove or unsure of will bring your sucsess rate down so you can't just say the ones you are sure of.

If you have a 98% sucess rate your saying I can bring you 100 adult p's from wherever i want (ie all fish come from differnt conditions) and have you sex each one and if i cut them all open your saying you would have only missexed 2 wrong? I find that pretty hard to beleive.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

I thought my pair was male and female sicne they were juvies and i figured correctly which one was the male and which was the female. Does this mean I had a 100% sucess rate or im just not including the others i had in my group that I didn't know the sexes of? Either way you can claim anythign you want but it doesnt mean i beleive it unless you have physical proof on the differences between males and females that can be confirmed by others


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## BRUNER247 (Jun 2, 2010)

On adult fish 6"+ I can tell a difference. I've picked males out of a tank full many times, same for females. My pairs aren't by chance or buying a bunch of rbp & hoping I get a pair. I've matched them up. Looked at the selection found the male with best coloration & appearance & matched them with like wise females. Been right every time. But like I said there's always that one exception to the rule hence why I say 98%. I could go to Lfs right now & pic out a males from a group of adults with no problem. I'm sure others here can tell difference also.I'm not saying its foolproof but its never failed me yet.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

An analogy is if you are watching a street and picking out all the Fords that drive by. You can't just pick the models that you are sure are ford and say you were 100% correct but rather you must identify every car in the sample as either ford or not. You can't just not guess on the ones the you arnt sure of and not include them in your results as to me that seems like skewed statistics but thats IMO. I do think there are small differences in males and females but i think differnent tank conditions makes it difficult to be always right as some fish may be malnurished, stunted while others obese or in perfect health.


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## BRUNER247 (Jun 2, 2010)

Well I wouldn't be looking at obese fish in the first place. If I'm needing a female or male for matching up, then I'm looking for the best fish in the tank, best coloration, best shape, ect. If you wanted a pr of rbp I could go to Lfs & pick you out a pr with no problem. Same as I could pic a male today here & a female tomarrow there. Any fish that looks stunted, obese, odd wouldn't even be considered in the first place. You don't match up a mangy looking doberman with a champion doberman.you look for wanted qualities. Breeders that don't care or know how to select proper fish is why captive breed rbp aren't as red as wild caught IMO


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## Brian762 (May 18, 2010)

BRUNER247 said:


> Well I wouldn't be looking at obese fish in the first place. If I'm needing a female or male for matching up, then I'm looking for the best fish in the tank, best coloration, best shape, ect. If you wanted a pr of rbp I could go to Lfs & pick you out a pr with no problem. Same as I could pic a male today here & a female tomarrow there. Any fish that looks stunted, obese, odd wouldn't even be considered in the first place. You don't match up a mangy looking doberman with a champion doberman.you look for wanted qualities. Breeders that don't care or know how to select proper fish is why captive breed rbp aren't as red as wild caught IMO


how can you tell? i am not doubting you, just want to know what you look for when sexing?


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## BRUNER247 (Jun 2, 2010)

In adult rbp the belly will be different. Females belly will be rounder than the males flat belly. Looking at a profile view I'm looking at the belly bottom. A females belly will dip down farther. A male will be much flatter. Males will be a flatter fish also. 6"+ fish.


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## Sacrifice (Sep 24, 2006)

To the OP, are you 100% sure that your uncle really had Rhoms, that maybe it just wasn't a group of Spilos or dents or something. You mentioned White Piranhas.

My guess is that they weren't really rhoms.


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## BRUNER247 (Jun 2, 2010)

Rhoms used to be called white piranha


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

BRUNER247 said:


> Rhoms used to be called white piranha


 ^True. When they are small rhoms are called white p's as they are more of a white/silver then black though it's a nice little contradiction that im sure messes up many. Im still interested to know what happend with the group.


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## BuckeyeGuy777 (Oct 30, 2010)

to the sylar....what happened to these rhoms...

and imo uv got way to many questions to jump into shoaling rhoms...heck most of the ppl on here havent done it
not sayin questions are bad but dont bite off more than you can chew


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## Johnny_Zanni (Nov 8, 2009)

White piranha usually refers to Brandtii....


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## BRUNER247 (Jun 2, 2010)

Back when rhoms were called whites, brandtii were called gold piranha. Many juvinile piranha were called white piranha by the natives just like they still call many adults, black piranha. Natural sub is very light colored. & white water washes their color out.


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## Sylar_92 (Dec 15, 2010)

Sacrifice said:


> To the OP, are you 100% sure that your uncle really had Rhoms, that maybe it just wasn't a group of Spilos or dents or something. You mentioned White Piranhas.
> 
> My guess is that they weren't really rhoms.


yeah now that I have more knowledge after joining this site I believe they were a "Gyurei shoal" not sure if i spelled this right but what ever.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

geryi shoal? that would probably be less common then people tring to cohab rhoms


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## Sylar_92 (Dec 15, 2010)

CLUSTER ONE said:


> geryi shoal? that would probably be less common then people tring to cohab rhoms


I know, but it's the only other expaination I have my uncle is no pro at keeping piranhas thats some thing I know now because the Ps he had a while back all died. the only time I seen Rhoms together was during my weekly scan of the site and at some pet store up in Aroura at least thats what i think the place was called. Also the rhoms I seen were pairs not a group of six like my uncle's.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

Do you know what ever happened with the group? It's easy to put a group of rhoms together but its alot harder for them to tolerate eachother and not try to constantly kill eachother


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## Sylar_92 (Dec 15, 2010)

CLUSTER ONE said:


> Do you know what ever happened with the group? It's easy to put a group of rhoms together but its alot harder for them to tolerate eachother and not try to constantly kill eachother


some thing was wrong with the filter, one day the entire tank was clear and fish were healthy, next day the water turned pure green couldn't see anything at all fish were floating at the top don't know what happend. Maybe it was a algea bloom on mass proportions. Aleast that's what my uncle told me. he was so pissed at him self but confused because he din't know what went wrong.


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## iLikePiranhas (Dec 31, 2010)

thats how my ciclids DIED =O, rhoms dont mix, mine try to kill eachother 24/7 even through the seperator


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