# Do juveniles "fake" P's eat live fish feeders?



## BiteMeNipMe (Apr 26, 2003)

Strictly to juvi (1.5") silver$, pacu, wimple Ps. Do those "fakes" hunt down and eat live fish feeders (i.e. comets)??? Or they're vegetarian??


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## Judazzz (Jan 13, 2003)

Wimples are carnivorous, and eat fish scales, nip fins and small feeders, and they do chase/stalk their prey.
Pacu's will also eat fish and other meaty foods, but I don't know if they actively chase down fish or just eat leftovers when they find some.
As far as I know, Silver Dollars are mainly vegetarian, but since most fish are opportunistic eaters (all the fish I have with my reds, even feeders, cories and small tetra's, do nip at pieces of shrimp or feeder when they come across it), they might as well take bites from meaty foods as well...


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## Innes (Jan 13, 2003)

I have seen a silver doller bite into a small puffer before


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## piranha45 (Apr 8, 2003)

silver dollars and pacus will NOT eat feeders, unless perhaps the feeders are VERY small. They wont bite into things and take chunks out like piranha will. Trust me, I've tested this extensively with pacus

The best response you can hope to get outta pacus is this:

I had 3 3" pacus in a 55g, I starved em for 4 days. I threw a 1" goldfish in with them. They initially all gathered around it, but the goldfish was oblivious to their looks, and just swam about normal. So the pacus did nothing about it. Left it in there for two hours. Nothing, not even a nipped fin on the goldfish. So i got a paper weight with a clip on it, and i stuck the goldfish's tail in the clip, and threw the clip into the tank.

The goldfish was sitting there stationary, wriggling about like a helpless worm. FINALLY, after a minute or two of investigation, these hungry fish took the initiative and outright ripped it up just as badly as any similarly-sized piranha ever would have-- they clearly got a nice set of teeth. After 10 minutes or so, it was completely devoured.

A month or so later, I repeated the experiment. The pacus STILL wouldnt not attack the fish if it was free-swimming.

Take in mind, before you exclaim about what a sick bastard i must be, at the time (2 years ago) I was just totally positive pacu were just "mildly less aggressive piranha", and had no information sources for the fish other than my lfs, which said they were "pretty aggressive piranha relatives".

I totally gave up on ever hoping to see them have carnivorous tendencies after that, and (fortunately? UNfortunately? Ill never know for sure-- I didnt really care for the fish, but what with the enormous sizes they were attaining, and my parents like for them, I coulda conned my parents into getting me a hugeass tank if they had survived longer) one night my freaking air hose slipped off of the airpump, and they were all dead and suffocated when i checked on them in the morning, having hit nearly 6 inches by that time-- and this was within like 3 months of having gotten them all at 1.5 inches. They grow like motherfuckers, and once they get bigger, they totally lose their piranha-esque appearance, and become these huge, ugly black fish that I reallly cant envision anyone ever wanting.

ANYHOW, I figured that little documentary was a good answer for your question.


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## BiteMeNipMe (Apr 26, 2003)

piranha45 said:


> ANYHOW, I figured that little documentary was a good answer for your question.


 Very good and helpful info. Thx *piranha45*. My 6 X-fishes (x=soon to find out if they're the real thing or just fakes) hunted and killed live feeders about half their size w/ no hesitation. It took them like about 5 minutes though to finally got hold of the feeders. They're not experts yet I guess. They ate 2 small live feeders within 2 hours time and I'd bet that they would eat more if they were more feeders in the tank. The way they attacked the feeders was amazing (amazing to me at least. My first carnivorous fishes) to see... very fast and furious :smile: Just as if I was watching a group of hyena attacking one baby gazelle on Discovery channel. I could see those feeders sensed danger in the water as soon as they got in. They hovered very near to the water surface. And would swim away erratically when those X-fish got near them. Despite all this experience, though I'm still not convinced that they're real P's. Will have to wait and see for at least a month and ask some experts here to ID them. If they turn out to be Pacus, I will have to give them up because 6 pacus?????? I'm not gonna spend a huge tank, which will obviously be not cheap, for bunch of fakes.

*"air hose slipped off of the airpump"* eh? accident?







j/k


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## piranha45 (Apr 8, 2003)

those are definitely piranhas, then.


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## Glowin_Navi (Apr 21, 2003)

piranha45 said:


> one night my freaking air hose slipped off of the airpump, and they were all dead and suffocated when i checked on them in the morning,


 thats brutal, just one night without the bubbles killed em? does the oxygen in the water get depleted that fast? You didnt have any other form of surface agitationlike a hang on filter?


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## Innes (Jan 13, 2003)

Glowin_Navi said:


> piranha45 said:
> 
> 
> > one night my freaking air hose slipped off of the airpump, and they were all dead and suffocated when i checked on them in the morning,
> ...


 that tank must have been way too overstocked, but yes overnight can do that to an overstocked tank.

In my days of just 1 tank I kept it well and truely overstocked and occasionally I would wake up to all of the larger fish floating about like they were drugged or drunk of something, and all the little ones would be gasping for air, and one time I was away for 2 days and my 2 parrot cichlids had died for the same reason - do not overstock tanks this much (I had about 25x3-6" fish in a 20 gallon


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## piranha45 (Apr 8, 2003)

to add to the situation, When I found out in the morning, I was in a rush to get to school on time, so I didn't fish their bodies out just then.

When I came back 10 hours later, the house REEKED. THE WHOLE FREAKING HOUSE. Terrible stench throghout the house for the next day and a half. We had to leave the doors open and stuff. You wouldn't know how pissed my parents were about it


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