# First eggs



## barbianj

My son has a 55 gal tank w/ 5 red bellies. They are about 6-8 inches in length. His tank was pretty dirty, so I cleaned it for him yesterday morning. His gravel siphon was too short, and I got him a longer one (so I would not have to put my hand way into the water). I did a lot of siphoning and did 10 gallon water changes 4 times. The water was very dirty.

The night before I cleaned the tank, I opened the lid to feed them, and one of the fish hit the lid hard before I put the food in. Then none of them ate. At the time, I thought something was odd, maybe because the water quality was down they were more stressed. Thats why I did the cleaning.

Last night one of the fish looked like it was trying to dig or eat something in the gravel. Then they were swimming close but not aggressively. This morning there is one nest with a large number of orange eggs on the right side of the tank. There are also a small number of eggs on the left side of the tank, possibly a second nest.

I have done some reading before posting here. We need to decide whether to raise the fry or not.

I have some questions in the mean time.

1. Could the poor water quality have been from previous eggs that we did not see that went bad? 
His light was not working for a while. If so, is there a greater risk leaving eggs in the tank now?

2. More importantly, with the size of the fish in a 55, do we need to worry about extra aggression.
Should the eggs be taken out right away? The fish usually do not fight much, and they seem fine for now.


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## werdna

^^ bump this topic... expert needed!!!! with breeding piranhas


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## WillieWonka1




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## Fry

barbianj said:


> My son has a 55 gal tank w/ 5 red bellies. They are about 6-8 inches in length. His tank was pretty dirty, so I cleaned it for him yesterday morning. His gravel siphon was too short, and I got him a longer one (so I would not have to put my hand way into the water). I did a lot of siphoning and did 10 gallon water changes 4 times. The water was very dirty.
> 
> The night before I cleaned the tank, I opened the lid to feed them, and one of the fish hit the lid hard before I put the food in. Then none of them ate. At the time, I thought something was odd, maybe because the water quality was down they were more stressed. Thats why I did the cleaning.
> 
> Last night one of the fish looked like it was trying to dig or eat something in the gravel. Then they were swimming close but not aggressively. This morning there is one nest with a large number of orange eggs on the right side of the tank. There are also a small number of eggs on the left side of the tank, possibly a second nest.
> 
> I have done some reading before posting here. We need to decide whether to raise the fry or not.
> 
> I have some questions in the mean time.
> 
> 1. Could the poor water quality have been from previous eggs that we did not see that went bad?
> His light was not working for a while. If so, is there a greater risk leaving eggs in the tank now?
> 
> 2. More importantly, with the size of the fish in a 55, do we need to worry about extra aggression.
> Should the eggs be taken out right away? The fish usually do not fight much, and they seem fine for now.


answers IMO:

1.possibly but unlikely.The water quality problem was probably due to 2 things.1.neglect & an overstocked tank. you should be doing atleast 25% waterchenges 2 times a week.(atleast)

2.YES! the aggression will dramatically increase (if the eggs are fertilized).Is there a male swimming around the nest in fast sharp circles?(he is trying to continually keep a fresh current of water moving over the eggs and guarding them from getting eaten by tankmates). If they eggs go white then they wern't fertilized and you might as well vac them out and flush them(although some may have been fertilized... just look close)
as stated above get a 20g for eggs if fertilized.you will see little tail sprouts out of eggs within 36 hours.vac them out then.
It will be very difficult to raise the fry in an uncycled tank.you will probably not succed unless you have or can aquire a cycled sponge filter.
buy brine shrimp eggs and learn how to hatch them.If you are at all interested in breeding them I would suggest you to try your best to raise them.Event if it dont work you will gain experience for the next batch of eggs. 
good luck
and welcome to the site


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## barbianj

There are 2 filter units on the 55 gallon tank with 4 filters in each. I assume that we could use these filters plus some of the parent tank water. He also has a small marine tank with live rock, so we are familiar with cycling.

Yes, the male on the right is fanning the nest. The one on the left is not as attentive. It is also the smallest of the five. From what I can tell, all of the eggs appear to be orange.

We are going to try and raise them. Like you said, if it does'nt work, we will be better prepared next time.


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## Fry

barbianj said:


> There are 2 filter units on the 55 gallon tank with 4 filters in each. I assume that we could use these filters plus some of the parent tank water. He also has a small marine tank with live rock, so we are familiar with cycling.
> 
> Yes, the male on the right is fanning the nest. The one on the left is not as attentive. It is also the smallest of the five. From what I can tell, all of the eggs appear to be orange.
> 
> We are going to try and raise them. Like you said, if it does'nt work, we will be better prepared next time.


I would take 1 filter out of each of the 2 filters.Put it in new filter.cover intake of filter with a very fine sponge(if you cant find a really fine sponge use fine netting to cover the songe or the fry will get stuck inside of it.
Congrats! welcome to my nightmare.


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## barbianj

Yesterday I stopped at Hoffers (lfs) and talked to the resident expert on rearing pianhas. They have a number of mating pairs and thousands of babies that they raise. He confirmed everything that I had learned from this site. He keeps his pH at 7.5 and the fry tank at ~82 F.

So yesterday we set up a 10 gallon tank for the fry. We have a penguin 200 with a sponge on the intake, heater and an air stone. We used all parent tank water and it is at 82 F. Both tanks have about 8.0 pH.

Siphoning the fry out was pretty easy. Next time I would wait a little longer so that more of them were hatched. Apparently some people have problems with fungus and some do not, but I would rather no have to deal with it if I didn't have to. My .02.

When we went to siphon the fry, all 5 adults gathered in the corner with the large nest. Even though we were right next to the tank they did not want to go to the other side. That seemed odd.

Last night, after the fry were in the 10 gallon, You could noticebly see the water become cloudy over just a few hours. There was only a small amount of gravel and the fry/egg mixture in the tank. So late last night we did about a 2 gallon water change. And no, we did not use distilled water. If it turns out to be a huge variable, we will do it next time, otherwise they will just have to live through it. So far they seem to be fine.

Now this morning the water was super cloudy. You could hardly see the bottom of the tank. If you look closely, you can see clouds of very fine particles rolling around. So I think that when the parent tank clouded up it did have something to do with spawning, eggs or whatever. We usually feed them Hikari cichlid gold pellets and we don't overfeed. Whatever the cloudy stuff is, it is too fine for the filters to remove.

I would post some pictures, but I found out that you need to have 100 posts to upload them, but my son has more than enough, so he can do it.

Now we are getting ready to go into Sea Monkey production.

Some things that happened that we could have done better or did not expect:

We siphoned the eggs into a bucket and then poured them into the smaller tank (located in a different room) Alot of the eggs/fry stuck to the side of the bucket. (Maybe they were mostly sticky eggs?) But there were alot more of those guys down in the small amount of gravel than I thought. It was more effective to pour out most of the water, but not all, then swish around some water from the tank back into the bucket to bring them to the top.

The sponge on the filter inlet in the 10 gallon was almost on the bottom because the tank is so short.
The young were kind of getting sucked toward it, so we cut the inlet tube down to raise the sponge a little higher.


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## barbianj

One question:

When we feed the brine shrimp to the fry, do we leave the power filter on & just let them float all over or what?


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## Fry

barbianj said:


> One question:
> 
> When we feed the brine shrimp to the fry, do we leave the power filter on & just let them float all over or what?


I think its best if you turn off the filter for about 10 min so the fry and the shrimp arn't blown all over and so that the shrimp dont all get sucked into the sponge.


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## acb

Heres some pictures of the progress so far....
View attachment 111183

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If you look close enough at the last picture you can see that the tails have already popped out.


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## barbianj

Makes sence. Thanks, Fry.


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## LouDiB

Awesome...good luck. From what I hear, once they start, they won't stop! Keep an eye out for aggression and get rid of a couple IF need be. If you want to cut costs, keep doing water changes, and let them spawn continously to feed the rearing little ones. I can't wait till mine get that age.Keep us updated with the progress of the fry.

Gotta watch the sponge filter. My convict fry used to get stuck all the time in there.


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## Fry

Try get some more cycled filter material in the fry tank if you can(dont over do it though its better to lose the fry then the parents).The water looks really cloudy I dont think there is enough bacteria in there to support them and uyou havent even started feeding them yet.Dont use distilled water because the PH will be alot differnt then the water the eggs are laid in.
When I was surprized by my first batch I used some ceramic rings from my fluval 404 and stuffed it into my hob filter for them.It worked fine.My guess is you are going to need the brine shrimp in about another 48hrs so get cracking on it.







and nice butt-load of eggs.


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## barbianj

Sweet fry pic.


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## golfer931

that is a really sweet pic of all those fry. Good luck with them hope all goes well. wish mine would breed soon.


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## NickNick

good job guys


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## barbianj

The babies are 3 days old now. The eyes and mouths seem more developed. Most of them are more upright rather than laying on their sides. 
It's amazing how mobile they are at such an early stage.

View attachment 111343


View attachment 111342


Just for size reference. Those guys are tiny.

View attachment 111341


No, it's not a margarita drip. For our brine shrimp setup we used these bottles because the caps are a thicker base to thread the quick disconnect fittings into. Plus, they look cool.







There were a couple of very slow leaks that were fixed with teflon tape. The small whisper pump works perfectly. It's higher than the bottles to prevent backflow. We started a test batch last night and they are just starting to hatch. Tomorrow will start full production.

View attachment 111340


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## barbianj

Things didn't go so well this morning. They started free swimming last night. There was a group of them swimming in the current, but by the morning most of them were not there. The sponge that i got from the LF guy apparently is too coarse. It didn't look like there were too many in there, but when I shook the sponge a cloud of them came out. Nice. Some kept trying to swim back in.

Also, it does not look to me that the BBS have hatched yet. It's been about 32 hours. We started another batch purchased from a different store this morning. We are going to get some frozen BBS today just in case.

At this stage how can you tell that they are eating?
Can you see them actually eat or do you look at the size of their bellies?


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## mantis

Great pics!

you're doing very well, considering it's your first crack at it. You can try feeding them hakari first bites as well, but most of the sucsessful breeders here use brine shrimp. Once they get big enough then blood worms, krill, ect.

as far as how much I'm not sure, that's up to u, it's is hard when they that small to see how much they're getting, but less is more.

rb's breed like rabbits, so you'll have many chances to find out what works the best for you.

keep up on cleaning the fry tank, maybe consinder making a mini syphon to get out all the crud.

good luck, keep us posted


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## barbianj

Okay, things are looking better now. They seem to have developed their swim bladders. You can see more of their organs, and each one looks like it has a small silver air bubble inside, if that's what it really is. Anyway, they are all swimming upright and have good control on where they are going. This morning they could swim, but if they were on the bottom, they were laying on their sides.

There aren't any stuck to the new filter, so that's good. I had to improvise and use a clean closed cell grouting sponge. That's all I had, but it is working really well.

The first batch of brine shrimp is ready and I just fed the fry. I can see the BBS swimming in the tank when I use a magnifying glass. I can't really see the fry eating, but they are moving about with a jerky motion. Their stomachs are starting to appear pink and full under what appears to be the swim bladder. I didn't think any shrimp hatched until they settled out and the ones on the bottom looked more like a cloud.

This is what we were looking for. Yesterday they looked like aimlessly floating invalids. Now they are cruising around with a purpose. This is so cool.


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## barbianj

Update pics.

View attachment 111681


How to tell they are eating? They look like a bloated mosquito.
View attachment 111682


Water is much more clear. We blow water on the bottom with the baster to suspend the debris and the filter cleans it right up. So far very few dead. The adult females are looking plump.
View attachment 111683


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## vyouravi

Oh I am so dissappointed that I am out of posts to read. I was reading this thread like a soap opra... keep updating it!


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## barbianj

Everything is still going fine. About 8 casualties overnight. The water is more clear. We siphon out the ones that didn't make it, then stir up the debris then into the filter sponge it goes. Easier to clean than we thought.

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View attachment 111786


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## vyouravi

wow, that is so many babies... What do you plan on doing with them? I bet it is a great learning experience for you!


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## barbianj

Good question. We didn't know so many would survive so far. My brother has an empty tank and wanted piranhas before ours laid eggs. My oldest son may want some. The rest, we will probably approach the LFS's for trade. We are not doing it for profit, more fore the experience.

Question for the more experienced:
At what stage do the fry need something larger than BBS and what are good foods to feed them at that age?

BTW, Thank you to to this site and the helpful members. Without this valuable information, we would not have made it this far.


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## NickNick

Good job good experience


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## Fry

Ive been using Hikari Tropical micro pellets.I startrd mine on it about4 weeks after they were laid.I even had to roll it between my fingers to make it a bit finer.This stage will probably only take you a week or 2 to get through then you can feed them crushed dried krill, bloodworms etc. I tried mine on adult frozen brine shrimp but they hate it and wont eat it.







.But I would highly recomend the micro pellets and you could try hikari first bites(you may even wean off of brine shrimp sooner with this)I never tried it yet cause LFS dont have it.


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## taylorhedrich

It looks like they are doing GREAT barbianj! It sounds like you are doing a nice job on raising those fry. There are so many of them it's amazing. I bet it is a great experience.

Be sure to keep us updated on their growth and progress!








~Taylor~


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## vyouravi

I know... such a great time I bet. I hope I get to go through that one day.


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## Fry

vyouravi said:


> I know... such a great time I bet. I hope I get to go through that one day.


watch what you wish for.


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## Malok

awsome thread it was like a soap
for me too u did an awsome 
job on this keep updating


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## barbianj

Still going well. The adults laid more eggs yesterday.

There have been only 8 dead in the last four days-only 1 in the last 2 days. Yesterday they ate about 3 times what they did the day before. I crushed up some freeze dried bloodworms and they ate them, so we'll start adding those to their diet.

The main reason we put the floating plants in like Fry did was to reduce the water flow from the filter. With a penguin 200 on a 10 gallon tank, they were being blown around a little too much when they started free swimming.

I didn't add any pictures because they don't look much different since the last ones.


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## vyouravi

Thanks for the update! keep them coming


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## barbianj

The little babies are still doing well. For the last 2 weeks or so they were eating frozen bbs. They started on mysis shrimp for the last 4 days. We scrape the frozen cubes with a knife so the pieces are not too large. They are starting to shoal together, so it's pretty cool when they eat the shrimp. It's like a mini feeding frenzy.

We had a minor malfunction a few weeks ago. During a tank cleaning, the filter intake grate was bumped and it was slightly opened. About an hour later the filter was turned off for feeding and the little guys started to backflow out of the grate.







There were quite a few of them swimming around inside the filter, but most of them were saved.

View attachment 113694


View attachment 113693


In the general discussion forum, there was a topic about cannibalism and at what age it occurs. It seemed around 1-1/2" to 2" was when it happened most. As far as our experience goes, it's as soon as they can fit a sibling into their mouths. And their mouths are decievingly large. We had found 5 or 6 babies in the parent tank and moved them to the small tank. They were slightly larger than average, probably a week older than the others. Well, apparently one of their food sources were their younger brothers & sisters. When they were transferred to the small tank it was an open buffet. They can't bit the heads off, so they swim around for a while and suck the flesh off of their spines then spit the rest out. Most of the dead ones we were finding only looked malnourished. It has slowed way down since they have been transferred, but you can definately see a stalking instinct at this early age. I guess that is to be expected, they are piranhas.

View attachment 113695


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## Phtstrat

The last picture is awesome.

Good job on raising the fry.


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## buckeyebaby3

I have really enjoyed reading about your adventure. Have a great day and good luck.


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## ruger345

Cool pictures. Goodluck raising the little ones.


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## Trigga

mann readin stuff like this really makes me impatient for my ps to start breeding. Good luck and congrats







.

BTW


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## RedSpilo

thats awesome you got me wanting to breed haha


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## QWERTY1830

omfg i wish my rbps were like 3 years old but they are only 2.5months lol i wanna breed!


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## barbianj

When we started out there were about 3 or 4 hundred. There are about 50 of so left.
All of the recent losses are from cannibalism. The pictures below are after a large feeding consisting of micropellets then mysis shrimp. After the feeding, two of the babies were killed. The guy in the picture was runnin like he stole it. He knew he did something wrong and he was trying to hide.

View attachment 114441


WHAT?? Who, me???? I dint see no fish head!!

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View attachment 114443


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## Trigga

what you gonna do with all the fry?


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## barbianj

At the rate they are eating each other I don't know how many will be left. The adults keep laying eggs, so we may rotate batches from the adult tank to the 10 gallon fry tank and get a bigger grow out tank.


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## NickNick

good job !


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## werdna

GREAT JOB DUDE KEEP US POSTED!!!


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## bmpower007

Very Nice work, also to see piranhas reproducing.


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## Fry

Super job!!!but I can't stress this enough...FEED,FEED,FEED!!!!!!!keep their litttle bellies full at all times!this will reduce canniblism dramatically! don't feed less then 3x a day.If you can do 4 or 5x all the better.Increase their rations.It's a P eat P world in that tank, there are only 2 things they really want.
1.Food
2.More food


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## barbianj

I hear ya, Fry.







We started with crushed cichlid pellets a few days ago
and they seem to stay full longer and the cannabalism has stopped for now. They are in our kitchen to get lots of attention and get used to people. They get fed at least 5x a day. That's why I couldn't understand why they were eating each other.









I ordered a 72 bow for the growout tank and i'll be making a stand like the All-Glass Aquarium Geneva type. I saw the pictures of your stand and would do that if the tank was rectangular.
Two sheets of hardwood plywood and some edge banding will be ~$100. The tank new was $160.


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## LouDiB

Red Spilo said:


> thats awesome you got me wanting to breed haha


Me too, I'm going to call my gf now.

I seriously can't wait till I can breed mine though. They are about 3.5 inches right now, showing great growth. Maybe around Xmas Time they will bang

Good luck and keep us posted


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## tileguy8

weve really enjoyed reading about your adventure, my red bellies have also bred, the first time all the fry died, not sure why, 2 weeks later new eggs were layed, now 4 days old and it seem they are quite healthy and swimming around, im trying to learn from all your exsperiance as well as everyone elses, we will see what happens, its actually all quite exciting, they are currently in a 25 gallon tank, when should they be moved and what size does anyone recomend to keep them in until they are about 1 inch ( i think between 5-6 hundred now)


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## LouDiB

tileguy8 said:


> weve really enjoyed reading about your adventure, my red bellies have also bred, the first time all the fry died, not sure why, 2 weeks later new eggs were layed, now 4 days old and it seem they are quite healthy and swimming around, im trying to learn from all your exsperiance as well as everyone elses, we will see what happens, its actually all quite exciting, they are currently in a 25 gallon tank, when should they be moved and what size does anyone recomend to keep them in until they are about 1 inch ( i think between 5-6 hundred now)


Well that's all relevant to what you plan on doing with them.

If I were you I would Buy another bigger growout maybe a 40 gallon LONG; and put fake floating plants at the top. Sell some to the LFS, or to some eager buyers. Keep them well fed and you will probably have great success just from what I red (4-5x a day feedings). If you want a controlled amount then keep what you have and siphon the squigglers for the older batch to eat.


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## tileguy8

ive already made arrangements with the lfs to purchase all I have when they are about the size of a nickel, so i want to keep as many as possible


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## barbianj

I think the big thing is the first time your fish spawn is do you have a cycled tank. I think our tap water pH happens to be just right for piranhas. the rest is luck. We have never been through this whole process yet, so I would really like to reserve judgement until and if any fish are grown. We started out with hundreds ond have probably less than 50.

One thing I don't understand is how you can count how many fry you have. I mean, really, it's like counting jelly beans in a jar. Even now when there are fewer it's hard to get an estimate. What really matters is how many you end up with, if that's even what you want.

There is no doubt that while your fish breed they act very differently from what you may be accustomed to. Even at 100 or 200 gallons of water, this is not what they are used to in the wild. In even smaller tanks tensions are higher because they just don't have the room to stake out a territory.

One of our lfs was selling reds for $4 and another has large breeding pairs and many 100's of babies. So selling or trading in this area does not look good.

Another thing for people who are trying to get their fish to breed. I am not sure that optimum water clarity is what is needed for your fish to mate. I know that pH is important and having males and females definately helps. Large water changes and large feedings can jumpstart the process. Overall healthy fish is what you want. Besides that you may need to add a little luck.

The conditions that the adults are in now are not what many would consider to be optimum to breed.
We live right near Lake Michigan where the temp is usually pretty cool. Many people here do not have AC because you may only need it a few days out of the year. Well, the heat wave that we have now is a good one. When I get home from work, the temp is off the scale, which goes up to 86 F. So we do a cool water change to bring it down to about 84-85. That's still too high. The water clarity in the tank has not cleared up fully even after adding an Odyssea filter. Yet, they still breed. There are 100's of fry swimming around in the gravel.

So, even though the water is not sparkling crystal clear, the fish are healthy and well fed. I think as long as you have the basic components in place, nature will take it's course.








You can't make 'em do it, but they will if they want to. They just may not stop.


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## mantis

you've done a hell of a job!

unless that one lfs is the only one around, I would keep looking. Some place will take few of the little killers of your hands.

keep us posted, more pics too!


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## barbianj

Yesterday was a hot one. Got home from work and the tank temps were off the chart again. The adults were breathing hard. Added ice to bring the temp down to 86. The heat doesn't seem to affect the babies. They still eat like little maniacs.

Despite all of this, there are two new nests this morning.


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## barbianj

This is one of the nests from this morning. These two get along pretty well.

View attachment 114855


Nice teeth, Dad!

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Cool picture of male fanning the eggs.

View attachment 114856


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## LouDiB

ALl of this is in a 55 gallon?


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## C0Rey

What a great thread!

keep us posted and good luck dude!


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## taylorhedrich

barbianj said:


> I think the big thing is the first time your fish spawn is do you have a cycled tank. I think our tap water pH happens to be just right for piranhas. the rest is luck. We have never been through this whole process yet, so I would really like to reserve judgement until and if any fish are grown. We started out with hundreds ond have probably less than 50.
> 
> One thing I don't understand is how you can count how many fry you have. I mean, really, it's like counting jelly beans in a jar. Even now when there are fewer it's hard to get an estimate. What really matters is how many you end up with, if that's even what you want.
> 
> There is no doubt that while your fish breed they act very differently from what you may be accustomed to. Even at 100 or 200 gallons of water, this is not what they are used to in the wild. In even smaller tanks tensions are higher because they just don't have the room to stake out a territory.
> 
> One of our lfs was selling reds for $4 and another has large breeding pairs and many 100's of babies. So selling or trading in this area does not look good.
> 
> Another thing for people who are trying to get their fish to breed. I am not sure that optimum water clarity is what is needed for your fish to mate. I know that pH is important and having males and females definately helps. Large water changes and large feedings can jumpstart the process. Overall healthy fish is what you want. Besides that you may need to add a little luck.
> 
> The conditions that the adults are in now are not what many would consider to be optimum to breed.
> *We live right near Lake Michigan where the temp is usually pretty cool.* Many people here do not have AC because you may only need it a few days out of the year. Well, the heat wave that we have now is a good one. When I get home from work, the temp is off the scale, which goes up to 86 F. So we do a cool water change to bring it down to about 84-85. That's still too high. The water clarity in the tank has not cleared up fully even after adding an Odyssea filter. Yet, they still breed. There are 100's of fry swimming around in the gravel.
> 
> So, even though the water is not sparkling crystal clear, the fish are healthy and well fed. I think as long as you have the basic components in place, nature will take it's course.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You can't make 'em do it, but they will if they want to. They just may not stop.


Oh reallly? What state are you in?

Very nice job raising those fry. It's been a great joy to see those updates and to see how they are growing so rapidly.
~Taylor~


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## barbianj

> Oh reallly? What state are you in?


Port Washington, Wisconsin. Probably directly across from you. We are in a valley on the lake so its usually cooler here than the surrounding area. The water temp here is too cold to swim in until late summer. You get the warmer water in Michigan.


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## barbianj

Well....went on vacation for a week and had my parents care for the fish. The babies grew ALOT in one week. The largest one keeps getting even bigger than the others. We expected casualties with the small ones, but not with the adults. One of the big ones was half eaten.







Yeah I know 5 adults in a 55 is too many. (Now 4 & still too many). There are very many free swimming babies in the adult tank. Possibly the aggression increased because of leaving the young in to grow? I can't blame my parents, we were'nt home.

Now that we are back home we can finish the new tank stand and get that setup going. We'll post pictures when it is finished.


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## oblene




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## rm123

as you problably no by now you have to feed them a ton always make sure there bellys are full. currently i have about 6,000 fry that i am taking care and 1.400 of those are 3/4" in a 50 gallon tank. in this last week there have only been 6 deaths so it is not impossible to have only have a few deaths.

so on your next batch of eggs you have try to feed more and make it a goal to have more of a success rate. also at about 3/4" you can start selling them to fish stores so if you plan on selling the piranhas start making your connections now.

on a ideal how to count your fry you can try my way it may not be the best but it works. in a 18 gallon tub fill about halfway with water from your tank then with a net and a smaller container scoop a net full of piranhas in the smaller cantainer. then with your hands slide a couple piranhas out at a time and into the 18 gallon tub and just keep track of all the piranhas you slide out. also add some water in the smaller container.

hopefully this makes sense

rob


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## WillieWonka1




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## barbianj

> I'm curious how you tell how much to feed the fry. Or, do u just overfeed them and then clean the tank afterwards? I just fed them as often and as much as I figured they could eat, not really knowing if they were getting enough or not... thanks


Exactly. How much & what do you feed them. That IS alot in a 50 gal. I assume no gravel with large filtration & water movement?


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## rm123

barbianj said:


> I'm curious how you tell how much to feed the fry. Or, do u just overfeed them and then clean the tank afterwards? I just fed them as often and as much as I figured they could eat, not really knowing if they were getting enough or not... thanks
> 
> 
> 
> Exactly. How much & what do you feed them. That IS alot in a 50 gal. I assume no gravel with large filtration & water movement?
Click to expand...

my tanks are bare with alot of filtration and an airstone in all my tanks. they start off with newly hatch brine shrimp until they are able to each frozen brine shrimp. once they are around 3/4" they are also feed frozen blood worms and krill at about an 1".

its hard to tell you how much to feed that is your judgement based on the size and amount of piranhas. they are feed at least 4-5 times a day with heavy amounts of food. it best to fatten them up as much as possible when there young so when you miss a feeding they are not attacking each other. if their are any signs of cannabilism they are feed right away.

about the 1400 piranhas in one tank is way to many and needs a large amount of work to have the best water conditions every day but i also have a very good survival rate.. i do have multible suppliers that buy 1,000 at a time so they do not last very long and all of them will be sold by this weekend.


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## LouDiB

rm123 said:


> I'm curious how you tell how much to feed the fry. Or, do u just overfeed them and then clean the tank afterwards? I just fed them as often and as much as I figured they could eat, not really knowing if they were getting enough or not... thanks
> 
> 
> 
> Exactly. How much & what do you feed them. That IS alot in a 50 gal. I assume no gravel with large filtration & water movement?
Click to expand...

my tanks are bare with alot of filtration and an airstone in all my tanks. they start off with newly hatch brine shrimp until they are able to each frozen brine shrimp. once they are around 3/4" they are also feed frozen blood worms and krill at about an 1".

its hard to tell you how much to feed that is your judgement based on the size and amount of piranhas. they are feed at least 4-5 times a day with heavy amounts of food. it best to fatten them up as much as possible when there young so when you miss a feeding they are not attacking each other. if their are any signs of cannabilism they are feed right away.

about the 1400 piranhas in one tank is way to many and needs a large amount of work to have the best water conditions every day but i also have a very good survival rate.. i do have multible suppliers that buy 1,000 at a time so they do not last very long and all of them will be sold by this weekend.
[/quote]

@ 1000 per buy, how much do you pocket, if you don't mind me asking.


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## WillieWonka1




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## Fry

About counting your fry.If you dont have too many you could do like me.I take a good quality picture then open it in paint.Then I count them and mark off the 1's I count with a dot of paint.works for me to get a good idea of the #'s.


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## rm123

WillieWonka1 said:


> What do u use for a lot of filtration then? A good filter with a sponge wrapped around it? My xp3 in the main tank manages to suck them in pretty good.. they live but still wouldn't be good for a fry tank. I tried a bigger filter on my fry tank but it sucked in and killed quite a few before I took it out.. and they were bigger fry, not newborn.
> 
> Sorry barbianj for butting into your thread.. but I was curious and didn't think it was worth a new post..
> by the way, nice thread and good going on raising the fry.. lot of work. Fred


just have two hang on filters both made for up to 50 gallons nothing major. i started using filter media and wrapped it around the inlet tube it just needs to be cleaned everyday. what i use now is the plastic from a tank divider with the little holes in it. i just wrap it on the inlet tube and stuff any areas were fry can get in it with filter media. it works great and have no problems with fry getting suck up by the filters.

anything under 1/2" they just get the sponge filters


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## bigredfish

GOOD JOB


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## barbianj

> Sorry barbianj for butting into your thread.. but I was curious and didn't think it was worth a new post..


 No problema.

Here is our current problem. If you remember we had found some stragglers in the parent tank that were slightly larger than the rest. THIS guy for whatever reason is WAY bigger than the rest. He is about 1.25". The rest are about 1/2" - 3/4". I couldn't get a picture with him next to the smaller ones. He was hiding after a big feeding. Since we were on vacation the size difference has gotten huge. There have been no casualties in the last day now that we are home, but there are alot of fin nips. The smaller ones are very skittish when he swims by. For now we are just going to feed heavily and keep an eye on the big guys growth rate and cannibalism. We don't have anywhere to keep a solitary baby. Sooooo....if he gets out of hand he may have to take one for the team.









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> they start off with newly hatch brine shrimp until they are able to each frozen brine shrimp. once they are around 3/4" they are also feed frozen blood worms and krill at about an 1".


rm123, with your higher yields of babies do you just throw the food in and clean up whatever collects on the bottom each day? Do you turn the filters off to feed? Also, is it possible to overfeed? Sometimes they look like they will literally burst.


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## rm123

> rm123, with your higher yields of babies do you just throw the food in and clean up whatever collects on the bottom each day? Do you turn the filters off to feed? Also, is it possible to overfeed? Sometimes they look like they will literally burst.


to be honest it doesn't matter how much food is thrown in 15 mins later it all gone. never had to siphoned any food out but sometimes you have to do huge water changes after feedings.

filters are turned off when feeding.

to be honest i woundn't worry about over feeding. the oldiest batch i am working with now was purposedly feed a ton of food multiple times a day and ended up having a awesome succes rate. it does look like they bellys are going to burst and sometimes they cannot swim, but it almost what you have to do to keep them from attacking each other.

if you can get over 1,000 to survive you can make a good amount of money breeding reds it also makes good trading to lfs and dist.


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## barbianj

rm123, thanks for the reply







This first batch is more of a family project. If we do another we should have more success. They are still laying eggs.

To keep the big one at bay, I bought 7 feeder guppies. The instant they were in the tank, the big guy attacked them and ate two.


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## Dairy Whip

keep the pics comin i like this thread. dairy


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## barbianj

My 72 bowfront stand is nearly finished.







Click on the link for the story.

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## NeXuS

good luck with ur fry or juviniles w/e they r now


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## barbianj

The story of the first eggs is coming to a close. They will be given away to friends and family that will hopefully expand their knowledge of piranha care on P-Fury. They grow up so fast.









We siphoned the second batch yesterday. This time we waited until they were all hatched. It was a little harder because they were more spread out, but almost all of them are alive. We found a 3/8" long baby hiding in the adult tank. That's one tough guy.

Since some of the babies survive in the parent tank without any live food. I decided to see if they would eat frozen bbs. Last night I put some in the fry tank. After the bbs thawed in the water, I noticed that over half of them were still ALIVE! It looks like the fry are eating them because they have a slight tint of pink in their bellies. Go figure. So much for that experiment.

We would like to everyone on Piranha Fury for your help. We would not have made it this far without you!









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## NeXuS

nice pics


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## redrum781

thoughs are some gret pics!!!!!!!


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