# Piranha Voyourism



## neverlistentome (May 11, 2003)

What do Cabira and RBP's look like when in the act of mating? Do they mate several times before she lays her eggs? Do they dance around each other, or stand parralel?

The reason I am asking:

I just did a 90% water change in an emergency. I was on vacation and came back to a cannister with a busted impeller. Since the water change (which I hear can simulate the rainy season and cause breeding), one of my cabira has become really dark - almost totaly black.

This was unusual, because normaly any sort of stress will take the color right out of my P's - they turn ghoast white and hide during water changes. Regardless, you can barely define her black spot from the rest of her normaly silver body. I've always assumed she was a female - just by an eye-ball comparison to skinnier males. She has always been pretty plump in the belly.

What really got me thinking about all this was what I've seen happen several times in the past 24hrs. Her and another skinnier cabira going around each other in the tank for 15 minutes at a time. It's hard to discribe, but it's as if they were dancing with each other. They faced opposite directions side to side touching one another. They stayed parrell to each other and spun around in circles in the same spot.

It seemed as if the male was trying to turn himself around to be in the currect mating possition with her. She would spin to move away and he would keep spinning after her, constantly trying to face the same direction as her. There was the occasional break from this when she would get pissed off and begin wagging her jaw and darting towards the male (I see them do this over territory all the time). However, within 20-30 seconds the male was back to the exact same spot and they were at it again. I've caught them doing this 3-4 times, but I am not around the tank all day, so who knows how much they get it on.

Anyone ever see cabira's mate? Is what I am discribing similar to what others have seen during RPB mating? If someone has experiance mating any sort of piranha, I'd like to hear your story.

Just so you know - I have no experiance in breeding other than book knowledge. However, I have read that breeding cabira is extremely hard. I have 3 cabira 6 inches TL in a 55g tank. That seems cramped for mating conditions. I doubt they're really mating - I'm not that lucky of a guy. It's just a really unique thing to watch and it got me curious.

My second guess would be that they're just spinning in circles as a way to established their pecking order (snakes do this). I call her Osama Finladen because she's the meanest P in the tank. She's obviously the dominate fish, so territorial fights with her may be normal.

Let me know what you guys think.


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