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Hi everyone I'm new here. I'm looking for people who keep pirahnas. I have two red bellie pirahnas which I have grown up together for a year now. These fish at times fight alot. I was wondering if they can stay together or will I have to seperate them?

Well yes and no, no 2 alone should not be kept together as they need to be in a larger school. Your report of them fighting makes me question how large your tank is. Piranhas are usually pretty timid and shouldn't be fighting with themselves.

Present: L183, L114, L330, LDA33, L059, L340, L136, L399, Clown, Whip Tail

Past: L001, L239, L200, L134, L030, L110, L204, L260, LDA08, L226, Ancistrs sp3 albino as well as calico, L187 (sp2), Common Hypostomus punctatus

Yeah , red bellies should be in shoals of around 8 or so in aquaria of about 200 gal plus, otherwise they tend to fight. They have odd shoal dynamics a bit like discus do, where if theres plenty of them they get on ok, but if you have only a few they start attacking each other.The insistance of keepers using livefood diets also means they get a little trigger happy near feeding times. Tanksize, shoal numbers and feeding routines often contribute to many pirahnas removing eyes from one another, and when the fighting is serious a single bite can be severe enough to end a fish's life. When severeley annoyed piranha will take a chunk out of anothers intestinal region, invariably causing death.

Piranha , dollars, and pacus, all fight if you only have two specimens, usually males.Its as if the lack of potential mates leads them to ever greater displays of strength to the point that they can spar each other into an early grave. Oddly enough within a shoal they spar less. The urge to split away from family and disperse among other piranhas that are largely unrelated is strong in this species, dont forget the young creche well away from the adults or they would be cannibalised, which in nature means when they do form full sized shoals , they will eventually be joining heirarchical groups and shoals of unrelated fish when they mature. Your piranhas will be finding the lack of numbers, potential mates, and the genetic closeness of their cagemate highly frustrating.



Red bellies are a specialists fish, for someone who has the cash for a big aquarium and the budget to keep quite a few specimens. If your down to only two and dont plan on getting more, a tank seperator may be essential. Might be worth either getting bigger on the equipment and shoal sizes, or if you only want a few fish or one fish , trade the red bellies in and go for a less social species that doesnt mind solitary living.Managing social aggression in pirahna is always tricky,often no matter what you do even in shoal situations severe fighting may break out. If your in love with piranhas but cant go large, choose a more solitary and calmer species than a red-belly.

While red bellies can be nervous, thats usually in response to the keeper or bigger predatory fish in captivity, and although this nervousness outside of a true shoal may lead to some fighting, largely from being on edge, in this case you probably have brothers who simply dont want to live together, wish to disperse to shoals of unrelated fish , and just live a normal life. They arent afraid of each other, they just want each other gone. The fighting could well escalate unless you seperate them, or give them some unrelated company. That of course depends on the tankspace you have available.

this is correct i have kept bellies in the past and even with a clan of 15 hey still took out eyes and chunks of eachother, i day 25% or them had a eye taken out at somepoint while in the tank, people often feen them live feeders but this should be a 1once a week thing not a daily feeding when you do it this way they are not as likly to get jumpy, and well fed bellie are more likly not to attack eachother when food is available.

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