Red Belly Piranha or Silver Dollar?

The coloration looks like a Piranha to me but the eyes and mouth looks similar to a Pacu . On the Piranha the mouth is usually a little more elongated and on the Pacu its more rounded like on yours .

 

I agree with reef on that one. Doesn't have the mouth shape of a piranha...Does look similar to a pacu.

 

Oh and by the way if it is a Pacu (and I strongly think it is) it will get HUGE . I had one 15 years ago that I got at about 3" or so and it grew into a 27" monster before I lost it .And thats not even their max size . Theres a zoo in Tampa that has a tank full of them and they are roughly 3 feet long . As mine got bigger (over 12" ) he/she wouldn't tolerate any other fish in with it , not even a clown knife that was larger then it was , it killed everything else in the tank other then the knife (but it sure tried to),was to flat to bite. It killed a Florida gar ,a wolf fish ,a large fire eel and a few others but forget what they all were . so just giving you a heads up .

 

Lol! Yea...they get to be bigguns! They have them at my local zoo/aquarium and theirs are beasty!

 

I always wanted to get an above ground pool , a couple thousand gallons and make it into a huge pond/tank and get more of them . They are amazing , i used to actually be able to pet the one I had and could hand feed it . That fish had a better personality then my dog does . lol It actually would turn so I could scratch it sides , needles to say I stayed far away from the bitting end of it , pet fish or not , I'm not THAT stupid . lol As long as I had something between my fisgers and its teeth I wasn't too over worried , guess it wanted the friut more then me .But I still wasn't taking a chance , those are big teeth and strong jaws .

 

It'll take a few years to get that big , BUT when they do your most likely going to have a hard time getting rid of them then . Not many petstore wont something thats 2 feet long with an attitude ,not to mention if they have a tank big enough for them . And even if you have a zoo/aquarium near you they usually don't want them either because you'll be the 154,965th person that went there with the same problem .
Now if you really want to keep them I say keep them just remember , there most likely going to be living alone and you'll have a few years to figure something out when the time comes . Out of all the different fish I've had they had the most personality and you wont be sorry you kept them .

 

ad them on craiglist (won't cost ya a thing to advertise them...and if you want you can ask a rehoming fee).

 

They are silver dollars.

 

difference between silver dollars or pacu/piranha?

 

ah....gotcha. for me it is the dorsal fin.

 

I'm not really sure how I would describe it. About the best I could say is that the dorsal for the silver dollars are not as "full" and more angled. Does that make sense? Let me see if I can find some pics for comparison.

 

Let's try this if it works for a visual:

Silver dollar:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Silver_dollar_fish_Metynnis_argenteus.jpg

Piranah:
http://gallery.pethobbyist.com/data/19280piranha.jpg

Here's your guys:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v96/BroncoScott/Fish/926ecded.jpg

 

yup their pacus like said b4 piriahnahs have their jaw like more of a V ahape