Fish paku. Myths and Reality

Fish paku ... Agree that many of us have never even heard of such a creature from the underwater world. And it's a pity, because this inhabitant of the sea depths can attract attention not only because of their physical features, but also due to the huge number of rumors associated with alleged bloodthirstiness and aggression.

Amazing fish paku: a general description and lifestyle

It is interesting that scientists consider the fish to be a family of piranhas. You immediately thought that before us - another bloodthirsty monster, which attacks everything and everything? By no means. In reality, the situation is quite different.

Piranha paku is a very large, strong, but inactive and absolutely non-aggressive fish. Its coloring, though contrasting, does not shimmer with all the colors of the rainbow: silvery-brown body is covered with silvery scales. The older the pack, the darker its color, eventually it turns into a black fish .

Paku is absolutely harmless, despite the fact that its size is much larger than that of the next of kin, and the teeth of this fish outwardly resemble human ones. She is a real vegetarian and eats only plants.

Rumors of the emergence of a new population of bloodthirsty pacu took place. But it seems that they have not been confirmed. And if this was true, then individuals became only an exception to the main rule.

Fish paku: habitat

Everyone knows that piranhas are found in the southern latitudes. Not an exception is the subject of our conversation. Where does the fish live? The photos are mostly made in South America, the Orinoco River, and in the Amazon basin. Although you can also meet these fish in Africa.

Features of food

As mentioned above, the pack only succumbs to vegetarian food. In captivity, they prefer to eat fresh lettuce, nettle, spinach, like green peas (even in canned form). And they will never give up ice cream spirulina and wolfia. For a change in the menu for fish, the pack sometimes includes granular, freeze-dried and other elements of animal origin.

Fish paku. Contents in the aquarium

The impressive size of the pack has to be kept in huge demonstration tanks. On average, their length varies from 30 to 40 cm, but some specimens can sometimes reach 60 cm. There is a known case when a fish weighing 25 kg has grown to 88 cm in length. While living in captivity, the pack grows no more than 50 cm in length, and their weight does not exceed 2 kg. But still for such a large fish requires a large enough aquarium, at least 200 liters, in which you regularly need to change the water. It is also necessary to install powerful air exchange and filtration systems of good quality.

You can decorate the aquarium with driftwood, stones, but algae should be bought artificial - others will just be eaten by fish.

If you are going to have several individuals at once, then make sure that they have where to turn. Please note that the pack is growing rapidly. Young fish will be enough and a 100-liter aquarium, but this is quite a short time.

Fish farmers feed them with pieces of bananas, figs and other exotic fruits. However, they will not refuse from pumpkins, cabbage, tomatoes and sweet cherries. The peculiarity of the pack is to digest the food not completely, which entails a large amount of waste. That is why the ideal neighbors for fish are packaged herrivorous catfish, which feed on the remains of food and push un-digested waste onto the surface, thereby helping to keep the aquarium clean.