I live in Amelia, Ohio and I am looking for a good place to purchase a large red pacu, where is a good place?

Do you have a 125-gallon tank? Get a small pacu;it's easier to raise it than buying an already large one. A small one can cost $ 5 and will grow to over a foot long and fat and heavy and WILD in about 8 months.Most pet stores will only have one if it received it as a reject from a customer who could no longer care for it;and then charge you $ 60 for it. It's not easy to get it home or acclimated to a new tank when it's large.( I'm in NY)

It takes up too much valuable space in a store.

Just out of curiosity, how big is your tank? Pacus get HUGE and some have quite a temper (like if you're trying to clean the tank!)

A well-kept pacu can get up to 30 inches and you would need a tank wide enough that it could turn around. As well, it is recommended that minimum 4 x the fish's body length for swimming. That would mean a tank that is 10 feet long and 3 feet wide!

This is reported in Wikipedia about the fish:

Pacu are commonly sold as 'Vegetarian Piranhas' to home aquarium owners. With the proper equipment and commitment, pacu have been known to make responsive pets. One such example was Swish, a 30-inch pacu owned for over 20 years by a Chinese restaurant (Kau Kau) in the Chinatown district in Seattle, Washington; one aquarium technician said of Swish, "He'd rub his body on your arms, kind of like a dog."[5]

However, the fish are a poor choice for the typical hobbyist. While they are not aggressive carnivores like the piranha, their crushing jaw system, used primarily for eating seeds and nuts, can be hazardous. One toddler needed surgery after a pacu (misreported as a piranha) bit her finger at Edinburgh Butterfly and Insect World in Scotland. Commenting on the incident, Deep Sea World zoological manager Matthew Kane warned, "Pacus will eat anything, even children’s wiggling fingers."[6]

Additionally, profit-driven pet stores which ignore long-term fish welfare, sell pacus as small as 2-3 inches long and neglect to warn customers that fish growth is not inhibited by tank size, contrary to popular fish lore.[4] "Most UK dealers now refuse to stock this species due to the large size and expensive aquarium requirements it demands," according to Practical Fishkeeping magazine's Matt Clarke.[7] Indeed, pacu should be raised in very large aquaria: They can grow an inch per month initially and in some cases double in size every month for the first year. They can quickly grow over 30 inches long and need enough space to live healthily.[8] Overwhelmed hobbyists are suspected of illegally releasing their pacu into wild waterways.

If you're still determined, and can't find something near you, you may want to check on aquabid.com They have breeders who will sell and ship fish to you.

you can go to you yahoo search....aquaria central....it has a classified section and i saw something about a one foot pacu.....well we live in clyde ohio (sandusky co.) and we just got rid of two of them but they will grow very fast if you do get a smaller one, im sure u could order one but it will get a little costly