Aggressive freshwater fish

I used to have oscars and I loved them. I had one that had such a neat personality. You could also hand feed him (I assume this is common) and he was very gentle, it would come up and put his head out of the water so you could feed it. You could even feel his teeth when he took the poor feeder fish from your fingers. The problem I had was getting good feeders without ich and whatever other diseases from the lfs's.

 

If you wanna see some serious feeder murders? To the point where you can see two or three heads in his mouth still gasping for air as they being swallow.. then you should raise a peacock bass... i have a 20 inch peacock bass.. and they are like the chainsaw massacre of fishes.. lol...

 

i had a couple ruby red oscars in a 75 gallon tank. they were fed nothing but hikari gold - red formula since 3" and by the time they hit 9-10" they were stunning. i had that tank right below another 75 gallon with 3 caribe, and 2 ternz piranhas and got more enjoyment out of the oscars hands down.

skip the pacu, they get HUGE and do nothing but eat. why hasn't anyone asked what size tank your looking to set up for this super aggressive freshwater fish? some species listed will need a large pond long trem.

~Will.

 

I had a 75 with Oscar, Black Convicts, and Clown Knife(These get huge and will cut feeders in half). Just be aware that with live feeders you need very good filtration and need to keep strict cleaning routine. When the feeders are eaten they release ammonia, etc... I had 2 magnum 350 units on the tank. They make for easy cleaning with quick release fittings.

Clown Knife was my favorite

 

Pacu are basically vegetarian pirhannas but they get much much larger when full grown

 

orange pike cichlid, but u need at least a 40 gal tank....they are the only aggressive freshwater i'd ever have again....oscars are cool but everyone has em....and most cichlids aside from africans are very docile....i loved my orange pike he was active, would eat krill from my hand, attack a butter knife, and when he was hungry he would jump up and pop open the lid to the tank.....i had him til he was over 7 in long and sold him with a tank and he lived almost 5 yrs to be 11 in....friend who bought him took poor care and thats what killed him....they are just an awesome fish.....oh yeah they will tear up feeders and anything else in there with em....bright orange color....i didn't read all the post but if u have somethin else consider switchin, send me a pic if u do....i miss baby fish (kids named her)

 

piranahs are nice and tear feeders up... but another nice fish that looks good as well is a Clown Knife fish... get one with a lot of spots and there awesome... Mine right now is about 7" and will eat up 30+ rosy reds a night if I let him.

This fish does get large tho so make sure you have the room if considering

 

Jack dempseys, firemouths,red devil, just to name a few

 

Pretty much any fish with a mouth big enough to fit the feeder fish in, WILL eat it. I had fresh water puffers chasing and taking chunks out of angel fish 10x their size. HAd the same angels gulping down 5 neons a night if they had the munchies. But the weirdest fish ive seen is a fancy goldfish that can barely move by its self destroy a siamese fighter the same size as it :S A friend also tried to put some turtles in his koi pond (only containing koi currently no bigger than about 4". We were a bit worried the turtles might eat the fish. Pffft. How wrong we were. lol. The koi sucked the poor little turtles limbs off before we could catch them and remove them.
But yes. As a few people have mentioned. Nearly all dedicated predators will get huge. Needing 75g + tanks and strong filtration.
Pacus are even bigger, (ie - public aquarium size when adult) and are not even predators. So thats not a good choice tbh

 

Yup

I know this is old as heck and i know you'll most likely never read this...but Blacks are deff a amazing aggressive fish and Iv owned 4 of these (4 different tanks obviously and there completely legal in Ohio) But in my own experience Piranhas can be a pain after a while cause if your heater goes out they can die pretty easy and another thing after a while Piranhas get really boring and Black are hard to feed cause they jump up at you my new fancy is the Bucktooth Tetras. There more aggressive then Red bellies but not a much as blacks but you can have 50+ in a 30-50 gallon tank and there not only pretty they won't swim away and hide behind rocks when you walk up to the tank. There really energetic just dont put your hand in the tank...there teeth are quite sharp...Iv got quite a few scares on my hands trying to clean there tanks.