the absolute scariest and most dangerous fish on the planet is the piranha
or at least that's what the movies will lead you to believe we're talking about a fish that had
a small size is scared of each other it's scared of if the lights come on it's scared of if i come
over to the aquarium it's scared if i feed them of course this is only the case at a smaller size as
they get bigger they become more bostrous and more comfortable in their aquariums and display a lot
more beautifully and that is why when i ordered these piranha in originally i wanted to get
fish that were four to five inches not four fifths of an inch so i was a little upset
when we originally put them in 120 gallon aquarium because these were tiny little fish nobody's gonna
get excited over that but as a hobbyist i secretly was i loved watching all of their transitions and
their behaviors and their personalities and how they interact with food and as well as each other
as they grow over time and i gotta say i have absolutely zero regrets while some people didn't
enjoy seeing tiny little fish that could pass as a tetra i was absolutely fascinated with them
today i want to give you an update on my piranha aquarium let's start with the initial layout
you guys will remember we originally went with some maple leaf rock as well as some
lava rock with anubias attached to it we then used some malaysian driftwood or malaysian wood in the
aquarium and we kind of created this scheme where everything's focused on the center like almost
like these two hands are coming together i get silly with some of the escapes and i thought it
just looked absolutely stunning and the focus here was force the fish to be the main display in an
aquarium where the scape really captivates you and is really different really is interesting yet it's
incredibly basic a bunch of rocks piled in the corners with wood sticking out and then i tossed
some anubius on top of it as simple as it is it's absolutely phenomenal at least in my opinion
with that said the scape worked out perfectly the piranha do spend most their time in the open space
but because the rocks are piled up in a certain way it does allow them which they love to do to
scoot under it and hide from me at all times even when i film videos in front of this
they don't like me waving my hands around et cetera et cetera but over time they're going
to get a little bit better they have quadrupled in size going from that tiny little size that
they originally came into now they are the size that i was ordering them in at
they are now probably about four inches at least for the most part we're going to get to diet here
first and feeding them and they've never eaten anything like this so i'm interested to see
if they actually will this is just a smelt that i got from my local grocery store
i cut them up to be a little bit smaller more manageable because this is typically what the
rays get more in tune with their natural diet is which is the whole fish when it comes to
maintenance on this aquarium i already showed you guys how i maintain the filters that we built you
know basically taking out the sponge rinsing that doing my water change replace the sponge
very very basic not a ton of work there as for siphoning the bottom of the tank i simply don't
need to do it because i'm using such a fine sand and because this tank has proper flow within it
nothing really settles in the aquarium of course it could potentially behind the rocks and whatnot
but i'm not concerned with that uh let there be uneaten food or detritus or fish waste or whatever
the case might be we have real wood in here which is decaying over time and it contributes to it
one of the things that i didn't like at first was how many tannins are being released
into the water from the wood this wood has been submerged for like four years and it
still releases tannins i like it it adds to the mystique of this aquarium we're just
using common household light bulbs these are led bulbs i showed you guys how i built these
uh we have an 11 watt an 11 watt and a 7 watt 7 watt throughout the middle to make it a little
bit more dim while the 11 watts are lighting the anubias which are doing fantastic however we do
have a couple of little algae issues which i don't mind we have a little bit of hair algae that i'm
seeing if it's gonna get any better or worse or if this is gonna be an ongoing issue if i need to
it's just appeared and then it didn't really grow or spread i do have one piece with a little bit of
beard algae i don't care about that stuff so long as it doesn't take over the aquarium in my next
water change i'm going to go in with a siphon and siphon out as much as i can and see if it comes
back but i think that we just had a bit of a spike in nutrients because typically these guys eat my
beef heart recipe and i'm slowly getting all my fish over to that beef art i snap off a piece
uh i defrost it until it's like wiggly almost like a gelatin toss it in the tank and these guys get
tasted immediately i'm trying to train them to get them to the point where i only reach into the tank
in one location and when i do that means food and if i do it in any other location that means
my hands are in there don't bite me but overall this scape is absolutely stunning it's definitely
one of my favorite aquariums out here in the aquarium gallery and i say that all the time
but it really is it's so simple it's so easy i think it showcases the piranha in like a
dangerous mysterious way but ultimately these guys can be relatively kind of boring i guess because
they're not all that colorful uh they're not that aggressive they're not that active i mean they're
most active when the lights are off and they just kind of occupy the remainder of the aquarium
you know if i'm lucky i might see 10 of them there's more than double that in here but a lot
of times they'll hide but they're all growing they're all doing absolutely fantastic we just
got to give this tank more and more time to mature once we'll make a video a year from now and this
tank is going to be night and day yeah they just all hide under the rocks and stare at me
one of the things that i do and i'm just noticing it now i got a flashlight back here
so if there is a big chunk of uneaten food i just go throughout the tank and i look for it
the other day there was a big chunk behind here and uh all i did was i put my hand in took out a
couple rocks the product went to this side removed the food because too much uneaten food is simply
too much now i'm curious if they'll eat this or if they'll even consider it okay we're gonna drop
in a piece that actually has a tail again i put it in this corner and i chuck it into
the uh the flow of the water so it kind of flows throughout the tank simulating something live so
they might go after it they're all hiding right now so lord knows if they're even gonna eat it
but that's what happens when i try to make a video and the lights are on and
not a lot of fish oh it's just gonna sink to the bottom there's that chunk of fish right there
give it a few minutes for them to taste it in the water look the tannins make the water look red
so it's almost like this is a bloody tank in the first place oh there they go one's curious as soon
as one is the pack will begin yeah there you go again kind of boring i'm just happy they're eating
oh wow they really like that that's fantastic because a lot of my other fish won't eat those
and it's gone i think four or five of them got it that's how fast it happens absolutely awesome
give them another one that's the prana tank for now guys there's not a ton to update on this um
but many of you guys have been wondering how's the prana doing how's the piranha
doing how's the piranha doing um and there's just they're growing everybody's doing fine
i've set these tanks up so there's not a ton of maintenance
but other than that the fish are growing everybody's doing fantastic they're cornering it
yeah so the final question has got to be is that it kind of boring i mean just a bunch of little
tiny piranha and a big old tank obviously these guys are going to grow to uh be a lot bigger and
i believe we got like 20 in there now or something like that um we'll dwindle those numbers to the
best 12 or the best eight uh once they get to the six to eight inch mark because these guys can grow
into about a foot uh long and once we get them up in size i plan to add in some dither fish
and this tank will transform into something absolutely incredibly beautiful it'll be night
and day won't the piranha eat smaller fish i mean there's the risk of it but for the most part the
prana don't view tiny little neon tetras as food when they're at a bigger size when they're at this
size they most certainly will and will eat them because they are worth the effort they're worth
chasing after them and and putting out that energy because they are going to get a big mouthful
but when they're a lot bigger they're not going to chase after tiny little fish this is very
well known for piranhas that you can actually keep them with a bunch of tetras and make it absolutely
beautiful and i personally can't wait for that so stick around because this aquarium is not done
and i probably won't get a chance to tell you tomorrow but happy holidays