Butterfly fish

Fish Care Description

Saltwater

The Butterfly fish is one of the most beautiful aquarium fish with their amazing array of colours and over 100 species, they are ideal to brighten up any tank. They have a small disc shaped body, (very similar to the Angel fish) with a pointed snout which helps when getting food from small crevices. They can be found on the reefs of the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific ocean. They can grow up to 5-7 inch  with a lifespan of 3-5 years

Butterfly fish have eye like dots on their tail to confuse preditors and a black stripe running through the eye to camoflage them when swimming among the corals.

Housing

The tank size should be a minimum of 20 gallons with a  temperature of  between (7.5-8.2) the water should be soft slightly acidic water and a ph of (6.0-7.5) Floating plants should be added to the aquarium to make the fish feel at home. At night the Butterfly fish will find a dark corner to hide in and the body color of the fish will fade in order to camoflage the fish from predators.

The Butterfly fish swim on the surface of the tank and may attack other surface dwellers, but are fine with middle and bottom swimming fish. They should idealy be kept alone or in schools as these fish mate for life.

Feeding

They should be fed a variety of foods like good quality flakes or pellets and as they are Carnivores some meats need to be added to their diet such as brine shrimp, tubifex worms and bloodworms, a favourite food of theirs is live small fish, daddy longlegs and crickets. It is a good idea to feed foods that float as the Butterfly fish is a surface dweller and will not eat food that sinks to the bottom of the tank.

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