Need help with Pacu someone gave me!! eekk!

[wayne]

If you read the start to the thread he's been dumped with the fish, and frankly if you look at the dimensions of the tanks listed I wouldn't call the 450 anything more than adequate.
What would you do if someone gave you 2 one foot long fish and a clearly inadequate 55 gallon? Especially if they were two pacu, which I doubt come anywhere near the top of anyones lsit of top fish to buy

 

[jediinthedark]

The other problem is that this sounds like a friend of some sort who gave these fish to this person. When their tour ends and they come home they'll ask about the fish.
"So... How were the fish I gave you?"
"Delicious."
"Huh?"

 

[svetlana]

Even large commercial aquariums are keeping only one, at most 2 pacus in very large bodies of water - no less than 1000-2000g. These fishes are getting amazingly huge and massive. They should not be sold for hobbists. But also, if you look at small labels in chain stores, they actually trying to tell you what max size of the fish. One guy tried to sell pacu to me as a companion for my JD! It is really outrageious but at the same time the same guy told me that it is difficult to distinguish between molly's male and female when i asked him to catch me 1 and 3 *laughingc So, maybe he is computer geek student and does not know anything about fish and just there for some money.
The point is we are on our own here.
I would have no idea of what to do with those pacus, honestly except of, as Delta, suggested, chop them up and eat.

 

[Chazwick]

I still think it's cruel! Why don't you put them in the wild? LOL - so what if they create havoc?

 

[svetlana]

I still think it's cruel! Why don't you put them in the wild? LOL - so what if they create havoc?

*twirlysmi
You are kidding? Right?

 

[ashleigh]

Putting them in the wild would be immeasurably cruel- they will either die a slow painful death in an unsuitable environment or worse- they will establish themselves and outcompete species who belong in said environment. If you don't understand that you shouldn't have fish. In addition to being GROSSLY irresponsible, it is also illegal

 

[wayne]

He was joking. See the LOL.

 

[ashleigh]

That doesn't mean she understands why it's a bad idea.

 

[FishGeek]

I say look for a good home for them a while. In the mean time figure out what you want to do with the tank when they are gone. If you cant find them a home then kill 'em, eat 'em whatever. But the main point here is he has 2 overly sized fish that he doesnt want and will most likely not find a home for. What else is he supossed to do. Its not like he bought and didnt know how big they got. He took them for a friend so that the friend could go into the military. Just be realistic.

 

[kindaconfused]

wow eveyone here is really getting into this lol!

 

[Firebug]

I agree with Delta as well. If you can't find somebody who KNOWS about how to keep pacus and has enough space for them, then they should be killed...Not eaten though. please, just bury them in the back yard, but don't gross me out by eating them!

 

[Chazwick]

Yeah .. Just .. I dunno. If you MUST kill them - kill them humanly.. and if you eat them - And you get something from all the chemicals - then it's your own fault.

 

[ashleigh]

The whole situation isn't his fault- these fish were chosen poorly and then dumped on him. He's trying to find the most responsible thing to do with them now. I've been a strict vegetarian since probably before you were born and I don't see what the big deal is if he eats them. At least then they're not a total waste.

 

[Chazwick]

Well i do. It's nothing about being a vegetarian - i too am i, i just don't.. you know - agree with it.

 

[ashleigh]

Agree with what, euthanizing the fish or eating it? He doesn't have a lot of options if he can't find suitable homes for these fish. Considering that a 90 gallon tank is not an adequate home, finding them a home is unlikely. Worth a shot, but not probable. So this is what he is left with: he can either give the fish a miserable short life in a scrawny tank which they will quite possibly break, or put them to sleep. Which sounds more humane? Whatever he decides, the guy was just trying to do a good thing. He doesn't deserve a guilt trip.

 

[vinodhv]

dig a pond? can pacus live in them? i was over at petsmart yesterday and saw a tank full of "Pacu (sm)". Of course you have to read the fine print to see how big these fish really get.

 

[ashleigh]

If that's an option for him then great, but it will have to be one heck of a pond.

 

[Firebug]

Agree with what, euthanizing the fish or eating it? He doesn't have a lot of options if he can't find suitable homes for these fish. Considering that a 90 gallon tank is not an adequate home, finding them a home is unlikely. Worth a shot, but not probable. So this is what he is left with: he can either give the fish a miserable short life in a scrawny tank which they will quite possibly break, or put them to sleep. Which sounds more humane? Whatever he decides, the guy was just trying to do a good thing. He doesn't deserve a guilt trip.

I myself have no problem with either...It just seems gross to me to think of eating a pacu. I eat fish, but only the ones that are you know, uh, ones you can buy in the grocery store or fish for yourself.. *PEACE!*

 

[ashleigh]

It is a weird association, I have no interest in eating it - but if you think about it stuff you buy in the grocery store is pretty familiar too- tilapia is just a cichlid. People in the amazon eat discus- ID cats are farmed commercially for the food industry. But now that you mention it I wonder if we have already scared this guy off ?

 

[NoDeltaH2O]

Yeah, I haven't seen too many posts from the original thread starter...

Well, at least we have given him/her a good spectrum of choices. I just hope that if he does eat the pacu, that he prepares a nice sauce for it, as the guy did when he ate his arowana: http://www.gsas.org/Articles/1999/to-server-fish.html "..."