Smiley

This is Smiley. He is a Pacu.


He is about 5 years old. He is 18 inches long and weighs between 5 and 8 lbs. He likes to eat grapes, fish food and most of all sweet potato. This picture was taken in 2005 so he's even a little bigger now. He lives in our 100 gallon tank. He barely has enough room to turn around. When Larry does a water change Smiley likes to get under the hose so that the water runs down his head. He will eat out of Larrys hand. He's not aggressive with the other fish. He doesn't like when people get up close to the aquarium.

It's always funny to see the reactions from guests when they see Smiley. They range from "look at that huge fish, what kind of fish is that, that's the biggest fish I've ever seen and what do you feed that thing?"


The picture on the right was taken at the aquarium in Dallas, Tx. These are also Pacus'. These fish range in age of 25 to 30 years old and weigh about 40 lbs. Smiley is a lightweight compared to these two.

Here are some Pacu facts: They come from several different species from South America freshwater ponds and lakes. Pacu fish are very closely related to the piranha fish as well. Most Pacu fish are herbivores and some even eat insects, left over meat from fishing lures, and often times whatever they can sink their teeth into making these creatures very easy to care for. The pacu fish teeth actually look a lot like human teeth which allow them to break apart their food that often times floats above the surface of the water. http://pacufish.org/