Hi guys and gals i just got a red belly pahrana yesterday, hes about 1.5 inches long i put him in my Oscar tank my oscar is about 3.5 inches.
What happend is m\the pahrana was ok untill lastnight when he started doing flips and laying on his back i was thinking he was gonna die. So i gota bad ready so i can put him in it to take hime back to the store, well i felt bad and took him out and put him in distilled wated in a bowl with a small bubbler in it i thought he would be dead by morning because no heater and he looked bad. I woke up this morning and he was still alive and kicking looked really good and was swimming everywhere. so i had to go buy a new tank only a 10 gallon and bought only distilled water for him and hes doing alsome still.
I know everyone will think my water ph might be high but its 8.0 all other readings are great. so do pahranas require a lower ph to live i thought it would do fine with the oscar but i guess not. thanks

pacu and piranha do dwell well with oscar's water parameters.
having distilled water may help because it is free of any
contaminants yet. perhaps, the red belly piranha was just
having a new tank syndrome or water tank temp shock. if it
was stable at this point in time, you can re-introduce it in
your oscar's tank.

my water is at thesame temp as the store i gothim from 79 deg. He did do fine for about 6 hours before he started doing that the water curent was just fliping him all over and he looked lifeless. i been trying to get my ph lower even though the other fish have been ok with it i have a pieaceof drift wood in there. i know my Alkalinity is kinda high its at 240. Iwas told that the powder stuff (cant think of the name) to lower my ph wont work because my alkalinity is to high. heres what my water looks like as of today.
Temp. 79 deg.
Nitrate 08
Nitrite 00
Hardness 75( soft)
Alk 240
PH 8.0

Im gonna try it in the morning to see if he will be ok ill be home all day. is my water ok ?

no reading for ammonia?
there are times that fishes do react with the new environment.
sudden changes in pH do affect the fishes too (shock). maybe
you've got different pH from the store although you have same
temp.

No readings of ammonia.
the ph is differents then the store theres is at 7.8

so far so good i put him in the tank this morning and hes doing great. Him and the Oscar are buds and my Tiger Loach went up to the pahranas mouth and was like smelling him. looked like a dog licking a person in the face. lol

LOL LOL

heres the Oscar and Clown Loach right beside each other the Pahrana is not in the pic hes hidding because im by the tank.
s566.photobucket.com/albums/ss110/daltonj82/
there are 2 picsso far one of them has the pahrana i saved

nice fish though dalton

So far so good the Pahrana is doing alsome i dont know what was wrong with him that night. How many mega pixel does it take to make a nice looking picture from ur tank? i have a 5 mega pixel and its still blurry. but anyways thanks for the commet

fish are awfully dificult to photograph.......but 5mp is plenty ...mines only a 4mp

very nice fish!! hope all continues to go well for you