# What serra is this?



## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

This was sold to me as a Yellow Brazil piranha. From the research ive done, I have found that a Yellow Brazil is an Eigenmanni. What do you think?


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## rhomkeeper (Mar 31, 2008)

could be eigenmani. pic is kinda blurry, there look to be a lot of tiny spots, so it could be p. striolatus also.


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

Yes the pic is blurry, I tried and tried for a better photo. There are lots of bold black spots all over the sides of the fish. What could I look for to tell the difference of it being Eigenmanni or striolatus?


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

Any Ideas? I know you all are Id experts!!!


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## Tensa (Jul 28, 2008)

check OPEFE you will see it looks like a strio or similar species and not a eigenmanni.


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## Piranha Guru (Nov 24, 2005)

PDOGGY said:


> Yes the pic is blurry, I tried and tried for a better photo. There are lots of bold black spots all over the sides of the fish. What could I look for to tell the difference of it being Eigenmanni or striolatus?


P. striolatus is called the speckled piranha and has the irregular small speckles that yours appears to display. Eigenmanni have small spots (bigger than speckles) that tend to elongate as they age.


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

Obviously the blurry pic doesnt help. The spots are larger in person than they appear here. The jaw of my fish doesnt resemble that of the striolatus. The jaw structure looks more like the eigenmanni. At what size does the humeral spot become noticable in the eigenmanni?


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## Tensa (Jul 28, 2008)

humeral spot shows up very very small and is even visible out of water. at a inch the humeral spot is noticeable if it is supposed to have a humeral. bottom line is thats not a eigenmanni.


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## ICEE (Feb 3, 2007)

i thought you didn't have a camera


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

AS fan said:


> humeral spot shows up very very small and is even visible out of water. at a inch the humeral spot is noticeable if it is supposed to have a humeral. bottom line is thats not a eigenmanni.


From the pics I see of the Striolatus, the spotting is above the lateral line. From what I can see in person this fish looks nothing like a p. striolatus that I have seen pics of. Is there something else it could be? Again look on aquascape at the eigenmanni it is sold as a yellow brazil as well.


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

So this is it huh? Doesnt look like it to me! As fan do you have a pic of your eigenmanni?


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## Tensa (Jul 28, 2008)

here is a picture from the first day i got them. even when stressed the fish has its humeral spot. the shape is even different from yours.


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

Actually, the head looks identicle to yours from that top view. Thanks for your input guys, I guess the best thing to do is wait and time will tell.


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## Tensa (Jul 28, 2008)

here look at Nick G's post in this thread its a impressive flank shot. http://www.piranha-fury.com/pfury/index.ph...=179108&hl= look at the whole body not just the head.


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

Is there any pics out there of juvi or sub adult p. striolatus? All that I have to compare to picture wise is what seems to be larger adults. With that said, in person this fish looks eigenmanni. Either way, thanks for the help!


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## Tensa (Jul 28, 2008)

how big is the fish? just so the next person has a better idea to help ID the fish.


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## rhomkeeper (Mar 31, 2008)

i doubt that this is eigenmanni, even though the pic isn't that good you can clearly see the spots are very small and neumerous, eigenmanni spots are much larger . some better pics would help, and probably a little time to fatten it up. i think its much closer to p. striolatus that s. eigenmanni, it could turn out to be neither speies too.


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

Looks like a juvi striolatus to me. The spotting and the tail fit the description. At least based on the current pics anyways.


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## hastatus (Jan 16, 2003)

Resembles a young S. eigenmanni.


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## Tensa (Jul 28, 2008)

wow Hastatus has spoken. i guess i have to say sorry for being wrong. Hastatus can you point out why this looks like a strio to us but you see eigenmanni? it just looks so different then what i have i had to ask.


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## hastatus (Jan 16, 2003)

> AS fan Posted Today, 08:04 PM
> wow Hastatus has spoken. i guess i have to say sorry for being wrong. Hastatus can you point out why this looks like a strio to us but you see eigenmanni? it just looks so different then what i have i had to ask.


*My mistake, I was looking at the group photo you presented.*
(AS fan Posted Yesterday, 08:39 PM 
here is a picture from the first day i got them. even when stressed the fish has its humeral spot. the shape is even different from yours. )

The top photo (first photo) could pass for P. striolatus as they are found in Brazil. But the poor quality of the photo is weak for a good ID.


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## rhomkeeper (Mar 31, 2008)

wow am i glad cuz i thought i was loosing my mind, i just wasn't seeing how the first pic was eigenmanni, as it looks so diferent from the ones i have seen


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

Took another pic, it looks clear and good in my camera, but once I post it comes out blurry! Again is there any pics around of a striolatus similar in size to this one?


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

http://www.angelfire.com/biz/piranha038/striolatus.html



rhomkeeper said:


> wow am i glad cuz i thought i was loosing my mind, i just wasn't seeing how the first pic was eigenmanni, as it looks so diferent from the ones i have seen


You and me both. It's not in my nature to doubt older guys than me


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## hastatus (Jan 16, 2003)

> You and me both. It's not in my nature to doubt older guys than me


I scare myself sometimes too.


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

And see the pic in that link, shows spots all above the lateral line. Is that just unique to each separate fish or what? Any p. striolatus I have seen pics of all the speckles are above lateral line and none below? Is that just cause mine is younger or?


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## hastatus (Jan 16, 2003)

> Took another pic, it looks clear and good in my camera, but once I post it comes out blurry! Again is there any pics around of a striolatus similar in size to this one?


The problem is, there are several forms in Brazil that appear in other historical scientific names. Your fish does look like a geographical variation of the Venezuela P. striolatus. Jegu is still working on sorting out the mess of "old names".


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

Well this fish is in a 75 gallon. How big with proper care will this fish most likely get? Are these worth holding on to, I think they are pretty rare or?


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## hastatus (Jan 16, 2003)

> PDOGGY Posted Today, 10:29 AM
> Well this fish is in a 75 gallon. How big with proper care will this fish most likely get? Are these worth holding on to, I think they are pretty rare or?


The answer is a matter of opinion. Ask yourself this, do I want to collect a variety of piranhas? Or just one type? Once you answer those 2 questions, then you will know what it is worth or how rare it is.


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

Well, I have many different types and have been collecting for years! Id say striolatus is rare as ive never seen one around. Doesnt mean there not out there, so I was wondering if they truly are rare in the wild and the hobby.


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## Tensa (Jul 28, 2008)

yea they are a rarer fish in the hobby. it is a beautiful fish with proper care as well. i would keep it just based on your specimen and man i am glad i wasnt wrong thought i lost my mind too lol.


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## hastatus (Jan 16, 2003)

> so I was wondering if they truly are rare in the wild


Fairly common in the wild, rarer in the hobby as this type of piranha does not bring much interest to the average collector.


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## rhomkeeper (Mar 31, 2008)

PDOGGY said:


> Well this fish is in a 75 gallon. How big with proper care will this fish most likely get? Are these worth holding on to, I think they are pretty rare or?


i have one close to 9", been told it is a monster, that they don't usualy get that big.

they look a lot different at adult size, they start to get very thick compared to juviniles


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

rhomkeeper said:


> Well this fish is in a 75 gallon. How big with proper care will this fish most likely get? Are these worth holding on to, I think they are pretty rare or?


i have one close to 9", been told it is a monster, that they don't usualy get that big.

they look a lot different at adult size, they start to get very thick compared to juviniles
[/quote]
Care to share a photo of the 9 incher, or direct me to a photo? I am keeping it as I do most all piranha I buy, I keep!


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## rhomkeeper (Mar 31, 2008)

PDOGGY said:


> Well this fish is in a 75 gallon. How big with proper care will this fish most likely get? Are these worth holding on to, I think they are pretty rare or?


i have one close to 9", been told it is a monster, that they don't usualy get that big.

they look a lot different at adult size, they start to get very thick compared to juviniles
[/quote]
Care to share a photo of the 9 incher, or direct me to a photo? I am keeping it as I do most all piranha I buy, I keep!
[/quote]
here ya go, its from an old post, i'm at work and don't have any pics on this computer, and my home computer took a sh*t last night so it may be a while before i get bak into it to find other pics


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

Very nice! Did you buy him this size? Any Idea of the location this one came from?


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## rhomkeeper (Mar 31, 2008)

PDOGGY said:


> Very nice! Did you buy him this size? Any Idea of the location this one came from?


it was probably about 6" when i bought him. don't realy know where he came from, i got it from shark aquarium and george said he had it for a long time and just didn't remember where it was brought in from


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## FrankP (Apr 25, 2004)

hastatus said:


> > so I was wondering if they truly are rare in the wild
> 
> 
> Fairly common in the wild, rarer in the hobby as this type of piranha does not bring much interest to the average collector.


Exactly, I ve got 2 Striolatus at the moment (1 small male and a bigger female), and I want to sell
the large female but nobody is interested in this species!
By the way, I live in Holland :nod:


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

I wonder why there isn't much interest in the striolatus? Maybe because there hard to come by, so there never was interest? I think they are very nice looking P's! Ill be hanging on to mine for sure! Thanks for sharing your photos!


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## Jonny_dw (Oct 2, 2008)

Hes some pics of my little striolatus. Hes about 3-4" now. Had him just over 3 months now and love the little guy, is a great little character.



















There not all that reason and he seems to have grown abit since then. Definatly keep hold of yours, they are great fish


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

See, and mine is a little bigger than yours I think. Its obvious they are from different locations, again yours spots are mainly above the lateral line. Mine the spotting is all over, wonder if there is any pics of one like mine at an adult size?


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## Jonny_dw (Oct 2, 2008)

PDOGGY said:


> See, and mine is a little bigger than yours I think. Its obvious they are from different locations, again yours spots are mainly above the lateral line. Mine the spotting is all over, wonder if there is any pics of one like mine at an adult size?


I think mine is Brazil varation because of the intense red colouring around the gills, I could be wrong though.

Hmm I think you'll be hard pressed to find many other adult pictures. Theres very few pictures around of these fish it seems and small amounts of information aswell


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

Jonny_dw said:


> See, and mine is a little bigger than yours I think. Its obvious they are from different locations, again yours spots are mainly above the lateral line. Mine the spotting is all over, wonder if there is any pics of one like mine at an adult size?


I think mine is Brazil varation because of the intense red colouring around the gills, I could be wrong though.

Hmm I think you'll be hard pressed to find many other adult pictures. Theres very few pictures around of these fish it seems and small amounts of information aswell








[/quote]
And mine was sold to me as a yellow Brazil, which I would think its a Brazil variation as well, but looks much different than yours!


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## rhomkeeper (Mar 31, 2008)

PDOGGY said:


> See, and mine is a little bigger than yours I think. Its obvious they are from different locations, again yours spots are mainly above the lateral line. Mine the spotting is all over, wonder if there is any pics of one like mine at an adult size?


I think mine is Brazil varation because of the intense red colouring around the gills, I could be wrong though.

Hmm I think you'll be hard pressed to find many other adult pictures. Theres very few pictures around of these fish it seems and small amounts of information aswell








[/quote]
And mine was sold to me as a yellow Brazil, which I would think its a Brazil variation as well, but looks much different than yours!
[/quote]
yours was also sold to you as s. eigenmanni, since the speies wasn't even right, how can you be so sure that it even came from brazil? somtimes dealers just call stuff what they want and tell you almost anything just to sell it.

in time, when its on a good diet and living in good captive conditions it may well turn red too. then as it gets older it may turn back to an orangish and then fade to yellow.


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## Jonny_dw (Oct 2, 2008)

PDOGGY said:


> And mine was sold to me as a yellow Brazil, which I would think its a Brazil variation as well, but looks much different than yours!


I may be wrong but Im pretty sure that red striolatus is from Brazil region and yellow is from Venezuela.


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## rhomkeeper (Mar 31, 2008)

Jonny_dw said:


> And mine was sold to me as a yellow Brazil, which I would think its a Brazil variation as well, but looks much different than yours!


I may be wrong but Im pretty sure that red striolatus is from Brazil region and yellow is from Venezuela.
[/quote]
i'm not 100% sure, but i don't think there is a yellow variation of striolatus, eigenmanni, yes, and since this fish was mis-identified as eigenmanni i think thats where the confusion comes from.

the first pic posted it does appear to be a bit yellowish on the gills, but the anal fin is red. that can just be due to stress and poor diet.it can also just be a very young fish just starting to get color. i have seen a lot of them 2"-3" that had no color at all, it just hasn't started to come out yet. in a few weeks that color should drasticaly improve and get redder.

when i got my big guy, it was more orange-red in color, but over time it has faded to a yellow, sometime it has no color at all, just plain silver. i think its more of an age thing that a geographical variation, but like i said i'm not 100% sure as the info out there is rather limited and all i have to go off is my own experence with these guys


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## Jonny_dw (Oct 2, 2008)

rhomkeeper said:


> And mine was sold to me as a yellow Brazil, which I would think its a Brazil variation as well, but looks much different than yours!


I may be wrong but Im pretty sure that red striolatus is from Brazil region and yellow is from Venezuela.
[/quote]
i'm not 100% sure, but i don't think there is a yellow variation of striolatus, eigenmanni, yes, and since this fish was mis-identified as eigenmanni i think thats where the confusion comes from.

the first pic posted it does appear to be a bit yellowish on the gills, but the anal fin is red. that can just be due to stress and poor diet.it can also just be a very young fish just starting to get color. i have seen a lot of them 2"-3" that had no color at all, it just hasn't started to come out yet. in a few weeks that color should drasticaly improve and get redder.

when i got my big guy, it was more orange-red in color, but over time it has faded to a yellow, sometime it has no color at all, just plain silver. i think its more of an age thing that a geographical variation, but like i said i'm not 100% sure as the info out there is rather limited and all i have to go off is my own experence with these guys
[/quote]

Yeah Im not 100% either, just Im sure I read somewhere though of there being a yellow variation.


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## PDOGGY (Apr 17, 2008)

I would say that there definately has to be geographical variations. jonny dw's fish looks very different in all ways than mine at similar sizes. Wish there was more info on these guys!


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## Jonny_dw (Oct 2, 2008)

You know I might be way off here but is there a possibilty this fish is a pristo mac? Just on 2nd glance it does look very similar with the larger spots and below the lateral line.


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## rhomkeeper (Mar 31, 2008)

Jonny_dw said:


> You know I might be way off here but is there a possibilty this fish is a pristo mac? Just on 2nd glance it does look very similar with the larger spots and below the lateral line.


do you mean serrasalmus maculatus or pristobrycon maculipinnis, either way it is deffinatly not either species. s. maculatus is very easy to id, and p.maculipinnis is also and not to mention extremly rare in the wild much less in captive collections


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## Jonny_dw (Oct 2, 2008)

rhomkeeper said:


> do you mean serrasalmus maculatus or pristobrycon maculipinnis, either way it is deffinatly not either species. s. maculatus is very easy to id, and p.maculipinnis is also and not to mention extremly rare in the wild much less in captive collections


I ment maculipinnis thats why i said pristo rather than serra. Yes it is rare but there are some of them in the hobby. On the UK piranha site Im a member of, I know 3 who have them. You could argue that its not a striolatus because theyre rare, doesnt mean its not possible.

Just does look similar to a mac in my opinion but proberly striolatus.


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## rhomkeeper (Mar 31, 2008)

Jonny_dw said:


> do you mean serrasalmus maculatus or pristobrycon maculipinnis, either way it is deffinatly not either species. s. maculatus is very easy to id, and p.maculipinnis is also and not to mention extremly rare in the wild much less in captive collections


I ment maculipinnis thats why i said pristo rather than serra. Yes it is rare but there are some of them in the hobby. On the UK piranha site Im a member of, I know 3 who have them. You could argue that its not a striolatus because theyre rare, doesnt mean its not possible.

Just does look similar to a mac in my opinion but proberly striolatus.
[/quote]
i'm not saying there aren't any maculipinnis out there, just that this isn't one of them


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## Jonny_dw (Oct 2, 2008)

rhomkeeper said:


> p.maculipinnis is also and not to mention extremly rare in the wild much less in captive collections


I was referring to this and just explaining that although they are rare, people still have them and therefore it could be a mac. I took what you said as there is only a handful of macs so it must be a striolatus but I was making the point that there are mac's around so its possible it could be one.

Do you not think the spotting looks rather different to striolatus? Especially with it going below the lateral line? Just my opinion that a mac is a possibility.


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## rhomkeeper (Mar 31, 2008)

Jonny_dw said:


> p.maculipinnis is also and not to mention extremly rare in the wild much less in captive collections


I was referring to this and just explaining that although they are rare, people still have them and therefore it could be a mac. I took what you said as there is only a handful of macs so it must be a striolatus but I was making the point that there are mac's around so its possible it could be one.

Do you not think the spotting looks rather different to striolatus? Especially with it going below the lateral line? Just my opinion that a mac is a possibility.
[/quote]

i think striolatus because of the large number of small spots. i have seen striolatus with spotting on the entire body and some with just a few spots.i say no to maculipinnis because of its rarity first off, even though the spotting on the two may be somewhat similar, the fins are different(maculipinnis they are all intense red) and the body is different. i'm not 100% sure it is striolatus, its just a best guess, now if frank said it was p.striolatus , then i would be more sure. i also see nothing in the sientific discription thats says no spotting below the lateral line, although i did just read that the brazilian form of p. striolatus is the red form and the yellow ones come from other parts of the range( no locality given)


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## Dawgz (Aug 18, 2005)

Id definitly buy one if i got a chance!


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