[jimbo]

Ok, I have quite a few questions, I really appreciate any help or advice that is given. First I'll tell you what I have, until my car is paid off I can only have 1 red belly piranha in a 20 gallon tank, it is about 4-5" in length, it has some plastic plants and a cave the it likes to hide in. thats about it.

now for the question

1)my piranha is a beast, it eats about 6 feeder fish every day, is this normal for being only 4-5"? or am I overfeeding it?

2) is pork heart good to feed it?

3)it is very shy, if somebody walks by the tank it will hide behind the plants or behind the cave, is this normal behaviour?

When I think of more questions I will ask, I hope you guys can help me out here.

 

[Sir Nathan XXI]

your fish is normal as far as behavior, as it gets older this skittishness goes away some. I would suggest feeding less feeders and more prepared meat, fish fillets, shrimp and lean beef (not hamburger) are good choices.

click below to go to my site, it will have all you need to know to take care of your little guy

 

[marco]

jimbo. hang around here alot and u will learn fast... and welcome

 

[Bcollins111900]

naye has the best website out there. As new to the hobby I suggest ulive by the thing as it should answer almost any question u can think of. Welcome to the board.

 

[DiXoN]

no 1 - too many feeders and yes try other things never feed mine live and never had any problems
no 2 - ive heard beef heart is good so i would expect pork heart to be ok
no 3 -try to spend more time around the tank but at a height that it can see you and it may get used to people being around more. i moved my tank to the other side of the room and they got a lot more skittish as i was never near them ,i now divide my time between sitting in my usual place and next to the tank and they are ok again. a lot of people said to me when i first got reds @ 3 years ago to not put them in a high traffic area ( no not in the road i thought i'd nip that one in the bud) but i would not isolate the fish the more they see people the more they will get used to people but use common sense and it hopefully will become less skittish but it can be down to temprament

 

[Innes]

welcome to the site

 

[traumatic]

wouldn't pork meat have the possibility of carrying trichinella? or other parasitic worms?

 

[Xenon]

I would stick with beefheart definatly....never heard of pork heart being fed but than again this is the webmaster that used to feed mice to his p's.

Jimbo, visit the Tutorials section of this page along with Nates page to get some info. The tutorials here have been debated among all the experts here so you should get some quality information.