# Skittish Caribe?



## Sacrifice (Sep 24, 2006)

Ok so I've kept Reds for years now, but Im wanting to try something different. Will I see much of a difference in keeping Caribe compared to Reds? Will the tend to be less skittish?

Does anyone remember what month suppliers start getting Baby Caribe in?


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## Piranha_man (Jan 29, 2005)

I've kept several tanks full of many pygos, single species tanks and mixed pygo tanks.

One thing remains the same in my experience.

There is no difference in aggressiveness or skittishness between the species.


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## Sacrifice (Sep 24, 2006)

In your opinion do Reds tend to calm down over time? I just get tired of them banging off the glass everytime I walk in the room. I'm attempting to fully plant my tank and they destroy it when I walk in.


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## Malawi- (Oct 21, 2008)

As they mature they will become less skitish.. Caribe are generally less skittish and more aggressive, but all fish and the tank settings will be a factor.


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## Piranha_man (Jan 29, 2005)

Sacrifice said:


> In your opinion do Reds tend to calm down over time? I just get tired of them banging off the glass everytime I walk in the room. I'm attempting to fully plant my tank and they destroy it when I walk in.


The best way I've found to change this behavior is to up their feeding times to several times per day.
First of all, get them accustomed to eating floating pellets aggressively.
Then feed them small amounts several times each day.

I've been doing this for awhile now, and now whenever I walk into the room they get all excited and actually respond to my presence as if it's a positive thing.


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## scotth42 (May 4, 2008)

Piranha_man said:


> In your opinion do Reds tend to calm down over time? I just get tired of them banging off the glass everytime I walk in the room. I'm attempting to fully plant my tank and they destroy it when I walk in.


The best way I've found to change this behavior is to up their feeding times to several times per day.
First of all, get them accustomed to eating floating pellets aggressively.
Then feed them small amounts several times each day.

I've been doing this for awhile now, and now whenever I walk into the room they get all excited and actually respond to my presence as if it's a positive thing.
[/quote]i have seen your video of feeding your p's pellets and i notice them swimming at mid level your tank has not much decor in it.i'm wondering i have removed all my decor and my fish will swim for a day all day then they just sit on the bottom when i put there decor back they just sit under the logs if i feed pellets the powerhead just blows them into a corner and my fish never go up to the surface i tried everything how do you get them to go up is what i wanna know? i have to keep scooping out pellets cause they never go up for them so if they never go up they'll never eat them.i see your fish are very active swimming all over i have the same size fish and there totally opposite


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## Piranha_man (Jan 29, 2005)

Here's the deal with surface feeding.

Piranhas naturally avoid the surface.
In the wild, that's where most of their predators lurk.
(Bear in mind, piranhas are NOT the top of the food chain!)

The only thing stronger than piranhas' natural avoidance of the surface is their natural instinct to not starve!
Here's my advice.

First, get them accustomed to eating sinking pellets by feeding them shrimp, fish or whatever by dropping in little bits at a time.
Work some pellets into the mix.
They may spit them out and not eat them.
That's fine.
Keep it up, and only feed them a little bit, don't satiate their hunger.

The next day, feed again, repeating with the sinking pellets.
Again, they most likely won't eat them.
They'll mouth them and spit them out.

Thing that will happen is... they'll taste that the pellets are of food value and remember that.
Keep your feedings very small so that day after day they get hungrier and hungrier.
You will finally find some of your pygos eating the pellets.
Once this happens, reduce the feeding of anything else but pellets.
They will quickly come to recognize pellets as their food.
Now that they are 100% on sinking pellets, and comfortable with them, work to phase two of the program.

Throw in a few sinking pellets, and a few floating ones.
Then wait.
They may come up and take the surface ones, they may not.
If they don't, then discontinue feeding and net out the floating pellets.
Repeat the following day, leaving them hungry if they don't eat the surface pellets.

Keep this up until they begin to eat the surface pellets, then feed only surface pellets.
Feed nothing else for awhile, ingrain in them that surface pellets is good food.

Now is the time to start feeding very small amounts several times per day.
You'll find that soon they will begin to associate your presence in the room with feeding and not be skittish toward you.

You now have a badass group of surface eating, skittishless pygos.


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

IMO...no matter what you read on this forum....there is no difference in the pygos. They can all be skittish....or not....it depends more on their environment then the species.


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## Shred Revolution (May 16, 2003)

I agree with the feeding pointers. I have been feeding my fish regularly and when I come up to the tank, they equate that with getting fed so they don't smash all over the place. When I gently tap the top of the tank they actually uniformily swim to the surface to investigate whats going to be dropped in. I usually reward them with a fish filet.


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