Mighty and bitey: Are there any great piranha exhibits?

DavidBrown

DavidBrown

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Piranhas are perhaps the meerkats of the aquarium world. Most aquariums seem to have them, but are there any really great piranha exhibits out there with cool interpretive elements that teach people cool information about piranhas?

Piranhas are ecologically important and have a lot of popular culture lore attached to them. It seems like they should get a lot more attention than they do by exhibit designers and zoo education interpretation experts. Is there anywhere in zoos or aquariums that they do?

The Los Angeles Zoo has their piranhas exhibited in front of the underwater viewing of the giant otters to make it appear that they share the same space. The effect is interesting, if not altogether effective. All one learns about the piranhas is a standard zoo information sign though. Every other piranha exhibit I have seen is a standard fish tank.
 
Zoofan15 said:
A lot of people rate the Piranha exhibit as the Georgia aquarium: piranha, aquarium, atlanta

It even has a livestream it’s so popular.
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Which is interesting as it really doesn't look that different from most large piranha exhibits. Most places just toss some piranhas in a large bare tank and that's it. Easy sure, but not that educational overall.
 
Great Argus said:
Which is interesting as it really doesn't look that different from most large piranha exhibits. Most places just toss some piranhas in a large bare tank and that's it. Easy sure, but not that educational overall.
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I guess that’s what you call successful marketing.

To be fair, an authentic Amazonian river exhibit wouldn’t have crystal clear water, so zoos have to stick within certain limitations; though as you say, bare tanks could be enhanced with rock faces, logs etc.

This species would also enjoy a lot of media generated hype re. viscious flesh eating fish.
 
Zoofan15 said:
I guess that’s what you call successful marketing.

To be fair, an authentic Amazonian river exhibit wouldn’t have crystal clear water, so zoos have to stick within certain limitations; though as you say, bare tanks could be enhanced with rock faces, logs etc.
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Yeah, their sensentionalization through the media makes them popular despite generally being exhibited rather sub-par.

This is also very true for various tropical themed tanks re clear water, it's much easier to maintain clear water than tannin-stained, especially for messy eaters like piranhas. Though I would like to see more decor at least.
 
Although this isn't answering the question of the thread (i.e. the visitor interpretation), I do like this tank at Beauval photographed by @Maguari - so much nicer-looking than most piranha tanks!

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Open-topped Piranha Tank at Beauval, 12/06/18 - ZooChat
 
I do remember visiting an aquarium in Northern France, helping look after pupils on a school trip. While I was there, the piranhas in a deep, vegetated tank were fed. During the aptly named feeding frenzy, one of the fish was accidentally nipped by another, resulting in it rapidly being defleshed and consumed by the rest of the shoal. Without a doubt, my most memorable example of Piranha exhibitery!
 
The new Poznan Zoo has a piranha aquarium with a low glass where people could put a finger, too.

In the 20. century, the old Danmarks Akvarium (now moved and reopened as Den Blå Planet) had a piranha display. The remarkable part was that an aquarium worker fed the piranha with dead fish, piranha skeletonized it in a feeding frenzy, and then the man waded in up to his waist into the tank and cleaned the glass, and walked out unscratched.
 
In Europe, the safety of zoo nerds is less an issue (for the zoos!) than it is in North America. Europe has plenty of walk-through exhibits with a wide range of potentially dangerous animals, plus there are places like Zee Aquarium Bergen (Netherlands) that think nothing of having an open-topped piranha tank in the floor. I've seen at least a dozen open-topped piranha tanks in my lifetime, but never one in the floor! I wonder how often someone drops an item into the tank when they lean over to look at the row of terrariums? Here's the exhibit:

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That's the point - nobody would be so stupid as to put fingers into a piranha tank. It is a sort of 'safe fear' which Dutch sometimes do.
 
snowleopard said:
New In Europe, the safety of zoo nerds is less an issue (for the zoos!) than it is in North America. Europe has plenty of walk-through exhibits with a wide range of potentially dangerous animals, plus there are places like Zee Aquarium Bergen (Netherlands) that think nothing of having an open-topped piranha tank in the floor.
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To an large extent Europeans are less prone to stupidity than Americans, also less likely to sue over dumb injuries inflicted by one's own stupidity. :p
 
I don't think I'd call it 'great', but Osaka Aquarium certainly has an interesting Red-Bellied Piranha exhibit. The exhibit itself is unremarkable, but it's more what other species that the piranhas are mixed with that makes it odd. There's a mix ofs other fish, like Flag-Tailed Prochilodus and Skirt Tetra, but it also houses an Arrau Turtle and Capybara. It's not some angle trickery where the turtles and capybara are actually in a different enclosure, I saw both the capybara and turtle enter the water and swim in with the piranhas. I thought this was really odd, is this a safe mix or an accident waiting to happen?

(not my pic)
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Besides this, all piranha exhibits I've seen are the standard single species, bare tank, crystal clear water types.
 
I finally came across a fantastic Piranha tank and it was on my recent Scandinavian trip. Copenhagen is home to Den Bla Planet Aquarium, which has a Tropical Jungle rainforest area that contains steps that lead down to some giant fish tanks. Here is the floor-to-ceiling, stunning Piranha exhibit:

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In regards to the clear water as opposed to tannin stained, is there a reason the aquarium could not use a tinted glass/plexi to give the same effect?
 
SwampDonkey said:
In regards to the clear water as opposed to tannin stained, is there a reason the aquarium could not use a tinted glass/plexi to give the same effect?
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I think part of the water colour is simply the photo, but either way this is a gorgeous, very large tank. I've never seen such a big Piranha exhibit in all my zoo and aquarium visits. There must be at least one thousand fish in this stunning tank.
 
snowleopard said:
I think part of the water colour is simply the photo, but either way this is a gorgeous, very large tank. I've never seen such a big Piranha exhibit in all my zoo and aquarium visits. There must be at least one thousand fish in this stunning tank.
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I was more meaning in general to tanks for these (and other Amazonian species) than this tank in particular - but you are right, that is a really nice looking tank for them :)
 
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