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This is a very graphic clip so for those on the squeamish side you have been warned ahead of time. BE FOREWARNED THIS CLIP HAS A LIVE GOLDFISH BEING ATTACKED AND EATEN BY A SCHOOL OF PIRANHA.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1273523147807051976&hl=en

Jim

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

Whoever did that is a sadistic idiot. Captive piranhas will readily accept pre-killed food and chunks of meat, so there was no point in subjecting that goldfish to an excruciatingly slow and painful death just so the owner could get some sick pleasure from it.

That was not even a feeder goldfish... It looked like it was someone's pet that they brought to the LFS because it was too large. I have absolutely no problem with using live feeders, but I feel that they should only be fed to animals that need them. Piranhas are not one of those animals.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

i did see a pirhana eat a feeder fish close up b4, not sure what the clip looks like, but they would gang up on the feeder, eat the fins off so they cant swim, and then start bitting.

yea it sounds like that clip was made for fun and giggles.

Thank you Natalie for posting your comments. Luckily reading your review meant I didn't go and look... I thought it was goign to be eating a hunk of meat or a dead animal....

Forumites please be sensitive to the fact that some community members may like a warning about live foods.... not every one incorporates this practice into fish keeping and as such it may be confronting (Jim your warning did not say live food!).

......... and it looked like a trade in pet? Not funny.

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~~~ My fish blow kisses at me all day long ~~~

I apologize for any offended, as I did not intend to do so. I thought my warning was enough, but I guess not. Again my apologies. I have edited my original post to include such a warning.

Jim

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

Personally i don't think that was too greusome(sp) at all.

And whether or not you agree with it, this is what these fish do in nature.

True bonny, except that in nature fish are not in a glass box. Goldfish dont naturally exist in their habitat. Nothing natural about it IMO.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

That is true, however no fish naturally lives in a glass box, all we can do as aquarists is provide the most suitable environment for our fish as we see fit.

Goldfish dont naturally exist in their habitat. Nothing natural about it

In real life another fish or animal will be the victim, so this behaviour is perfectly natural.
Feeding piranhas dead meat is unnatural.

In the wild, piranhas regularly feed on large dead and dying animals, so chunks of meat is perfectly natural. In fact, along with the fins and scales of larger fish, chunks of meat form the majority of an adult piranha's diet, not goldfish or other small, living fish.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Piranhas are opportunists that happen to be equipped for efficient carnivory. They will take live fishes in the wild, but they'll also tke a whole host of other meaty foods. One of the reasons that they're so efficiently equipped is that they're designed to take apart tough carcasses, for example, a dead Spectacled Cayman. These reptiles are well armoured, so dismantling them to get at the meat requires very efficient cutting tools. Which, of course, Piranhas possess. They will also attack anything that is injured and leaking blood into the water, which is one reason why you don't go paddling in their native waters if you have a cut anywhere on your body - they possess extremely sensitive olfactory receptors designed to respond to the presence of blood, and will home in on the source of the blood with laser guided accuracy.

TFH has a nice article on them (June 1977 issue, Pirnaha Behaviour ...Facts & Myths by Richard M. Foxx, Ph.D, pages 4-14 and 101-102). Some quotes are apposite here:

Eye witness descriptions of Piranha behaviour have proved to be more terrifying than any novelist or screen writer's imagination. For example, in 1966, the Associated Press reported from Venezuela that Piranhas ate 21 leftist guerillas who had jumped into the Arauca River to escape a National Guard patrol.

However, as an example of how contrary these fishes can be:

Harald Schultz, the noted Brazilian ethnologist who spent many years along the Amazon studying the Brazilian Indians and collecting exotic fishes, felt that the danger posed by Piranhas was greatly exaggerated. He wrote that "naked children and adults romp and play among the schools of the fearsome Piranhas". Schultz himself often ventured into Piranha-infested waters and was ignored even when he swam among them. Others have reported similar experiences. Dr Herbert. R. Axelrod has swum among Piranhas on several occasions. Dr George S. myers, probably the foremost authority on Piranhas, has bathed among them. Each of these distingushed individuals added cautionary notes, however, that their successful experiences may have been the result of a number of factors such as the particular species of Piranha, time of the year, water temperature and location.

The article also contains a study of the modus operandi of Piranhas when hunting, which includes some interesting insights into how the fish approaches the problem of eating a prey fish that is too large to be engulfed whole. 90% of the time larger prey fishes are attacked tail first - the tail i sbitten off to immobilise the prey. Approximately 10% of the time, the Piranha attacks the eyes of the prey fish to blind it. Tail attacks are particularly common if the Piranha is part of a large shoal (which is of course the case in the wild), where one fish will immobilise the prey, before the others move in for the kill.

In addition, ambient water conditions contribute to the lieklihood that a Piranha will attack something other than a sick, dying or small fish. Another quote:

Why do Piranhas attack in certain situations and not in others? On etheory that seems plausible concerns the Piranhas' level of deprivation. Piranhas are schooling fishes tha tinhabit an area until they have reduced the existing food supply, at which time they move on. When they have recently arrived in an area and food is abundant, it is likely that all healthy animals are relatively safe in the water. Only the old, sick, disabled or very young are likely to be eaten. Thus Piranhas serve the same function as any other predator ... to eliminate the unfit. If they were as bloodthirsty as we have been led to believe, the Amazon River region would be barren of wildlife rather than teeming with it. However, when Piranhas have inhabited a region for an extended period of time and thereby have decreased their available food supply, hunger could motivate them to the point where they might possibly attack any organism that enters the water. This would be especially true if they became trapped in a relatively small space such as during a drought.

Some natives report that Piranhas are dangerous only during certain periods of the year. These periods may correspond to the Piranhas' breeding season, since they, like many other fishes, are extremely pugnacious at that time, especially the Piranha species that guard their nests. Also, many fishes have voracious appetites just before and early into their breeding season in order for their bodies to have sufficient food to produce eggs and sperm.

The article also confirms my statement above about dismembering dead Spectacled Cayman - it says that the Piranha is capable of biting through alligator hide with ease, and indeed can even bite through some pieces of wood.

Also, various aquarists over time have reported that Piranhas kept singly or in small numbers are nervous, even timid fishes that prefer to run away from an encounter with an aquarist's hands unless the fishes believe that they are cornered, and left with no alternative but to strike out and bite. Piranhas kept in good numbers, however, are braver - their bravery increases with shoal size. Needless to say, in the typical stretch of Amazon River where these fishes are found, shoals can be huge, numbering up to a quarter of a million individuals in particularly spectacular examples, and when Piranhas have those numbers to call upon as backup, they are very brave indeed! A big shoal can, if motivated sufficiently by hunger, strip a 2,000 lb water buffalo to the bone in about 20 minutes, and those 21 leftist guerillas mentioned above would have stood no chance once the Piranhas decided that they were lunch ...

The moral of all of this is very simple of course, and it applies to dealings with any wild creature - don't behave like food. That unfortunate goldfish in the film clip, of course, wasn't given a choice (and whoever put that goldfish in there might benefit from a salutory lesson involving spending time in a tiger cage, but that's a rant that belongs elsewhere), but even creatures that have that choice in the wild sometimes get it wrong, and when they do, behaving like food in front of a shoal of Piranhas invites swift and lethal retribution as a penance for that error of judgement.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I agree with Natalies standpoint. Just because they do in nature doesnt mean you have to mimic it in captivity when it simply isnt necessary. As she said, since they regularly accept krill, beefhearts, etc, what is the benefits or use of feeding them live goldfish, or any other fish, which would die slowly and painfully? Yes, this happens in nature, but hey, these fish arent in nature no more, and fish in nature usually have means to evade the piranha. Of course, we cant control what other aquarists do, so yeah.

Just my two cents..

To top it all off, goldfish aren't that great as live feed. It is actually in the best interest of the charachin to be offered prepared, frozen foods instead of goldfish.

at work, we had a piranha display where about 80 to 90% of thier diet was prepaired food; flakes and pellets. They even ate spirulina flakes, and we did not starve them or anything to FORCE them to eat. In fact, we would feed they daily, at LEAST.

i understand both points: of the ppl that are in favor of dead or nonliving food
but natalie also inclueded the word dying .

Now im not sayin go buy a shubunkin and feed it to ur piranha
but in nature they done just feed on dead or dyin fish. In the wild they are quite capeable of hunting in schools.

IMO im on both sides of the arguements but yes it is a good idea to warn the ppl that might find this clip abit offensive.

Ive seen a video like that involving pirahnas being fed a live mouse too, its pretty pointless and twisted.

Im not against feeding live foods, but just as with feeding snakes I would personally bash the fish/mouse on the head before it was dropped in the water. That way it would feel no further pain. Dropping the fish in the water fully awake and alive was just plain sadistic. The fish was placed into an experience of fear, pain , and panic, it need never have experienced. It is the duty of the fishkeeper to ensure the pain free deaths of all his charges, be they fish needing euthanisation, or feeder fish,frogs, and mice offered to predatory animals.Some countries require the humane handling of feeder animals to be conformed to by law. Its entirely possible the person who shot the clip in the first place was breaking the law.

Im pretty sure the pirahnas would have taken the fish freshly killed, or indeed frozen and thawed. This clip was shot for sadism sake. Pirahnas feeding behaviour is well documented, we didnt need some amateur fishkeeper taking sick videos and playing with animals lives to remind us.

The use of the goldfish as a feeder item is valid, the way in which it was done was utterly distasteful and needless.