The black pacu spawned in our holding tank. The eggs clogged the filter rather quickly, and it required backwash after backwash to clear it out. We also removed eggs with fine mesh nets. A side issue was the ammonia in the holding spiked very high, and we had to remove all the fish almost right away. Even after several MASSIVE water changes, we ended up having to 'restart' the system and start over with cycling the tank.
As for the reverse undergravel, there is somewhat of a false bottom to the tank, so that the return pipes are not in contact with the actual substrate. This prevents the lines from plugging with sand.
I tired to peacock bass, and maybe someday I'll get them. Other than my good experiences with them, everyone else here seems to think they will pick off too many smaller fish. From what I have seen, if you switch them to prepared foods when they are small, they stay on them. The fear is that they will eliminate out school over close to 400 silver dollars (with over 200 more still in holding growing up).
Would look awesome in there! Didn't see any pbass though! That would really round off the list!! Or are you trying to stay away from the larger predatory cichlids?
