# house a piranha and cichlid together?



## crashergs (Aug 26, 2006)

for the fish guys, can this be done? i have a 12inch red devil cichlid, and with all the talk about piranhas i found a place online who sells them, just curious to know if the piranha will attack my cichlid or maybe the other way around?


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## sammyp (Aug 26, 2006)

Naturally, pirahna require a species tank. The only thing you may have some luck housing with them would be a larger armoured catfish or plecostomus.


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## mitchrobot (Aug 26, 2006)

don't do it. 

pretty much all large central american cichlids have much too nasty of a temper to be housed with smaller, less agressive fish. 
Piranhas naturally feed off of larger fish, and also larger prey (but not limited to eat, they'll eat almost anything).

you will either end up with a bunch of dead Ps, or a very ugly/mangled/dead RD. 

a friend of mine had a 450g tank, half with a school of adult red bellies, caribe and piraya, and the other half with an 18" male dovii (wolf cichlid). while he was at work, the dovii knocked the devider over and went after his Ps. when he cam home all the piranha were beaten up and huddled in a corner, the dovii had lost its lips and large parts of its fins, but was still attacking them.

they are both very interesting fish, most large cichlids have mroe personality than any otehr fish you'll  find, and Ps have a very interesting social order. but choose one or the other, for the fish's sake.


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## mitchrobot (Aug 26, 2006)

i forgot to add:

as far as housing with otehr species, its hit or miss with pirahna. 
i had luck keeping larger tetras with them, and convict cichlids. the convict cichlids were put in originally as food (i feed all my fish fry from my pair's spawns) but they hid, and eventually grew up in there and did quite well. the tetras did fine after the Ps got bigger, i think they were more able to escape. i put them in there to keep the attention on them, rather than having the Ps attack each other (i lost 2 over 6 months). 
also, as far as tankspace goes, go bigger if possible, and start out with a good number of Ps. they are less skittish in big groups. dont over do it on red meats or feeder goldfish. mine did well on a diet of frozen prawns, krill, pellets, squid and white fish fellets. they also ate crickets, worms of all sorts and crayfish. 
good luck.


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## crashergs (Aug 26, 2006)

roger that. thanks for your guys' tips, guess no piranha for me


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