Can two 4 inch red bellies live with other fish

[ajgreer_99]

I have two 4 inch red bellies and want to know if it is possible to put them in a 120g. aquarium with two 5 inch pacus, and two 5 inch tinfoil barbs and five 3-4 inch cichlids, and a 7 inch pleco. If kept well fed do you think they would kill the others or just nip fins every once in a while. I have had the red bellies in with plecos and bala's without any problems. and they will not eat any gold fish any more. they eat just frozen meat and worms. when I put fish in with them, they live forever till I take them out.

[Darkangel]

While it might be possible and you will even be succesful for a while, remember they are piranhas and predators and all it will take is one bite and bye bye fish. I personally would not mix them with anything other then large pacus and other piranha. I have a shoal of 6 adult reds in a 90 gallon tank. They started off as 15 3/4 inch long fish. They were very very well fed. There are lots of triggers that may make one of the piranhas bite one of the other fish and chances are if it was bitten they would keep picking on it till it was dead.

[wetmanNY]

Get it on video! get it on video!

Then put it on cable-access tv.

[Jukax]

That combination is just asking for trouble. General rule of thumb - don't mix P's with anything except fellow P's. Exceptions : pacu's and plecos. Tinfoil barbs and bala sharks MAY be okay, but I wouldn't count on it. Definitely keep the P's away from cichlids, the cichlids won't stand a chance unless they are far larger. Even that is temporary though, as P's grow like a devil possessed if well fed.

Even the fish often mixed into a P tank, pacu's and plecos, have been killed from time to time. If you check out PredatoryFish.net you should be able to find a lot of great information on the message boards, I'd say about 40% of the members on that board keep piranhas and they know their stuff. You could also check out the picture section there too, some very interesting pics of plecos and pacus who fell prey to P's. The pleco pic was quit amazing, the person who owned it fish the two remaining body parts out of the water and set them up in a bucket. What was originally a 10 inch or so pleco was reduced to a severed head and severed tail - the P's had completely devoured the midsection and literally cut the fish in half.

Also, I hope you're planning on a larger tank down the road...depending on the type of pacu you own, you're going to end up with a couple 2 to 3 and a half foot fish. It's not uncommon to buy a 2 or 3 inch pacu and have it grow to 16 inches over 12 months. Grown pacus shouldn't be kept in anything less than a 265g.