# My 8 Denticulatas and 9 Silver Dollar Schoal



## primetime3wise (Sep 28, 2003)

Thought i'd toss these pics i took out there as i don't see much info or pics of denticulatas.

They are the best schoaling piranha, imo. very active and come right up to the tank at feeding time. not as aggressive and territorial as pygos, but much less skittish as well. will hit the feeders hard, and i started feeding them bird seed more regularly. these guys will eat anything offered, almost, including flake! minor fin nips in the beginning, and very rarely nowadays, even few on the silver dollars in there. they tolerate em cuz they look pretty similiar.

what's also cool is that i have two variants of denticulatas. if you look closely at some of the closeup pics, particularly the 3rd one, you can see the minor differences, particularly the more pointed snout vs. a more rounded one.

the biggest one is about 6" now, all are about 4-6". the dollars i recycled, lol, with a lfs, traded in larger ones for smaller to keep the amount of waste, down.

they have, still, after several months, somewhat of a parasite, encrusted bird parasite. gonna treat that better in the future, though it is basically harmless.

some pics are blurry...someone needs to tell me how to take good pics of fish that are always moving







though 4 and 5 are pretty good pics

enjoy!


----------



## ICEE (Feb 3, 2007)

a bigger tank ? nice interesing shoal

id suggest 125g


----------



## primetime3wise (Sep 28, 2003)

eventually when i move to a 75g, plenty for them. they don't need much room to be active, even the one slightly over 6" is always movin', and like i said not very territorial or aggressive. will have to downsize some of the s. dollars though, i think 17 is a little too many fish for a med. sized tank.


----------



## ICEE (Feb 3, 2007)

75g is still to small I would say 125g but thats me


----------



## primetime3wise (Sep 28, 2003)

tough to get good pics of schoal, they are always on the move and end up as blurry pics.


----------



## Doktordet (Sep 22, 2006)

Nice interesting shoal you go there. As far as pics go, all i can shoot are birthday pictures. I think it depends on your camera's shutter speed and lighting. With a flash, you might be able to get a decent pic, problem is the flash also gets tossed back to you if youre pointing the camera straight on. Another problem is the flash tends to reflect off the fishes' scales and so the fish looks like a bright piece of floating foil instead of the natural way your eyes would see them. My dad used to have an old Nikon SLR professional camera before the days off digital photography. That was a great camera. Now, I have a crappy Olympus 5 megapixel camera thats just totally useless for hobby photography. All its good for are mediocre family photos and birthdays. Its got a ton of settings, but no matter how I try to tweak it to clearly and accurately capture fish on the move, its just a piece of sh*t.


----------



## primetime3wise (Sep 28, 2003)

ahh, mine is 5-6 years old which is prolly partially why. they havn't perfected digital cameras, anyway, still makes any camera look somewhat "fake". similiar to movies w/ digital graphics/animation, those still look somewhat fake as well.


----------



## Lector (May 6, 2005)

Do those things have teeth ? do they eat like piranhas ? i saw those things befor at the pet store .. but i duno are they aggressive or are they just pellet eaters?


----------



## primetime3wise (Sep 28, 2003)

they have 5-cuspid teeth, hence their nickname, the "5 cuspid" piranha. they are primarily carnivours, like any other piranha, but they will eat almost anything, pellets, flake food, grapes, nuts, bird seed, and whole or frozen fish foods (feeders, smelt, bloodworms, etc). they do hit the feeders hard, just tossed some in and they were all over em. they are ravenous eaters, hit the food hard no matter what. nice thing too is they eat at any level of the aquarium, bottom, middle and top.

they are only semi-aggressive, and not at all territorial, i would say, not nearly as much as pygos or serras. on the flip side they are not nearly as skittish...very active, always moving, come right up to the top of the tank at feeding time. maybe i should qualify that by saying they are tolerant of each other and the silver dollars, but will go after almost anything else.

their behavior is def. different from most piranhas, i guess that is why they are not popular. like i said, they are the most entertaining schoal you could ask for, to watch, always moving. however, again, they are not too aggressive, much more "mild-mannered" than other schoaling piranhas. again, though, only towards each other...i only have em with silver dollars, anything else wold be ugly. so, maybe they are aggressive in a sense, but unlike pygos or serras they don't stake out territory and/or defend a territory fiercly.

they tolerate the silver dollars as they look quite alike, but, don't take kindly to other species. funny, i've heard sometimes if thrown in with red bellies, they will bully the reds around, head butting them.

http://www.opefe.com/genusPygopristis.html


----------



## Lector (May 6, 2005)

How much are they a peice? Add a video of them eating a large goldfish im kinda interested.


----------



## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

nice looking dents

one thing i would also get rid or some silver $ or all to thin out shoal to give the dents more room


----------



## primetime3wise (Sep 28, 2003)

Lector said:


> How much are they a peice? Add a video of them eating a large goldfish im kinda interested.


not too pricey about the same as reds, some of the online stores have them....usually bought at 2" for $12?? i believe. they grow fast! maybe even a little faster than pygos.

i can try tommorow real quick to see if i can get a vid


----------



## primetime3wise (Sep 28, 2003)

damn. observed the dents today. the 2 that are another variant have pretty bad fin nips. on one of them, the dorsal fin is completely missing! i guess, maybe they are a little more aggressive than i thought. i still stick by my claim, though that they are not territorial, only very mildly.

what's also weird is that with the much smaller silver dollars, 1-3", they are completly fine. they leave the dollars alone, even though the feeders i toss in there are the same size or even larger.

jusy a fyi for those who might find it interesting.


----------



## Lector (May 6, 2005)

i do them ps look cool i might get a few .. . chuck them in with my reds.


----------



## primetime3wise (Sep 28, 2003)

i'm not sure i'd risk, in the long term, of them becoming snacks for the more opportunistic, reds. i only had reds with them for a week or two.

on the other hand, don't think anyone had tried it longterm, here...except one very occasional member, had denticulata in his un/alias. i think he had one in with 3 reds for quite a while, and if i remember, the dent ran the tank.


----------



## primetime3wise (Sep 28, 2003)

just to add to what i said, i asked "Hastatus" if he had done it before, and he said he had mixed reds with denticulatas before, with the result being the dents ending up as an expensive meal for the reds.

i'd say the odds of keeping anything with pygos is remote, long term, can be done with some luck and short term...exos, raphael cats, etc... but like most experienced people here have realized, other fish tend to become meals for their pygos sooner or later. if u wanna drop $15 or so for an expensive feeder, go ahead, otherwise i'd be cautious.


----------

