This is a living dinosaur known as an African butterfly fish. Wikipedia Entry These guys have been around for some time and are the only surviving species of their genre. The closest living relative is an Arowana and these guys have a similar looking mouth and body structure.
As for Behavior they don’t actually do much. They spend a lot of time pretending to be a leaf and hiding and waiting to Ambush pray as their Ambush predators. They’re wild caught when you buy them from the store as they are extremely difficult to breed in captivity. It can be done but it is rare.
Since the Wild Caught you’ll probably need to start them off on a diet of Live Food if you intend to keep them. I started mine on crickets and I was able to switch him to a form of cichlid sticks that are used to feed arowanas that float. They are picky about their dry food though so good luck on that.
Overall I’ve had them for a year and have found him to be really forgiving despite my newish aquarium mistakes. He has survived both massive general hardness increases and massive pH drops. They are unbelievably tough.
I don’t know if you can see this but those fins are made for flying. You need a tight fitting lid or they will jump from the tank. They’re also both a weird contradiction to kind of own. They need a lot of cover near the top of the water line but they like to have spots of Open Water. So you cannot just put in floating plants and call it a day. You need to remove enough of them but there’s open spots of water for him to poke his head out to eat food. He also has a very hard time eating when there are floating plants around him.
Here in this picture he’s waiting for food because it’s feeding time. They are very intelligent. He does not run for me anymore when I stick my hands in the water to try and feed him as long as I don’t spook him.
He’s one of my favorite fish I’ve ever owned. Currently he lives in a bog Style fish tank with a ton of floating plants up top but lots of open spots of water for him to poke his head out. The pH in this tank is around 5.5 with a KH level of 0 and a GH of 5°.
What a cool looking fella! Do you have him solitary or are there other critters in the tank? I’m reading that they do eat smaller fish lol
You know I read that but he isn’t doing anything to control my guppies that are also in the tank 😁
He sometimes eats bladder snails.
I had him with a dwarf gourmai for a year and they did pretty good.
I have found him to be thoroughly chill as long as he has places that other fish won’t bother him.
Still be careful with tankmates that fin nip as they can damaged the butterfly’s bottom sensory fins.
