African Butterfly Fishhhh

[AshleytheGreat]

Has anyone had any experiences with these fish,Pantodon buchholzi,? They look really interesting.

[shev]

Yeah, I have one. What did you need to know?

[fishboy]

i'm also interested in these, shev can you just give info on things water, tank size, personal experience, difficulties faced with keeping, feeding, etc.

[shev]

mines in a 55 gallon, but since they spend 99.9% of their time on the surface (only leaving it when scared) they dont need a very large aquarium volume-wise, just one with more surface area. they also arent very active (except during feeding) they just float in a corner and gradually through out the day pick different spots at the surface to float around. they are jumpers, so be sure to keep a lid, and all openings covered. their eyes are positioned on top of their head for obvious reasons, eating bugs at the surface or flyiing overhead, but they have a bunch of "feelers" that they use to feel small fish and things below them, so they do eat things around neon, guppy, or zebra danio sized, despite what people will say. I keep mine with some blue/gold gouramis, the butterfly fish is kinda territorial, it'll shove the gouramis when they come up for air. but not too rough. sometimes the gouramis will give a little nip on a "feeler" and the abf jumps quite a ways.

When I first got it it took a couple days before it ate freeze dried foods. Until then I fed moths, flies, grasshoppers, mayflies, mealworms any soft shelled bug. If you have other fish that eat fromt he surface (like gouramis) it shows the butterfly fish what to eat and to compete to get food, they easily get caught up in the "feeding frenzy" and dash all over the surface eating the food. mine will attack anything that hits the surface even if it doesnt know what it is. amazing reflexes, mine has caught earthworms and pellets. I still feed it bugs during the summer. very fun to watch eat, I lower the water level a couple of inches and open the screen to my window. moths fly into the tank because of the light and the fish will catch them in mid air.

I guess not very picky about water conditions, they are from africa and probably prefer higher ph's, but maybe not. mine is in around 7.2 ph.

whenever a friend comes over they always stop and say "hey, your fish is dead". even when i tell them its supposed to be like that at the surface they dont believe me.

no difficulties yet, I think they breathe air sometimes, or all the time, making them hardier than a lot of fish.

An intersting thing, when the lights are on they are full of their dark brown and iridescent markings, but dont be frightened when you turn off the lights and come back and its pale white. within minutes of turning the lights back on it'll be back to normal.

[AshleytheGreat]

So not good with other surface dwelling fish?

[shev]

Not necessarily, depends on what kind of top dwellers and the size of the tank.

[AshleytheGreat]

20 Gal with Hatchets 6 of them...I also have shrimp.

[shev]

marbled hatchets and any others around that size may/probably will get eaten/attacked. shrimp (if ghosts) may get eaten since 20 gallons arent too tall. but maybe not.

[AshleytheGreat]

I have 3 marbles and 3 silvers.

[cucci67]

I really like the look of these fish, but I was going to get soem small schooling fish.

[matt123]

Thanks shev, i was looking for some info about these puppies. I got 1 opaline gourami in a 29g, so hopefully it wont be a prob. Id thought these would need picky water conditions, but from the way you put it, they seem *reletively* easy to keep.

[jeremy242]

I had one until it jumped out of the tank, i had my tank completly covered, when i was feeding my plecos one night he jumped out and i didn't notice. I will be getting another when i get a new tank. Mine ate crickets once a day but never ate flake or anyhting else. They are deffinately territorial. I have 2 honey gourami and he would go after them when they were at the surface or near him. I had a piece of background plastic plants which i floated on the surface for him to hide in. It was realy only used for the first few weeks while he got settled into the tank. the yare very nice looking fish and not that pricy. Yujust have tokeep a stock of crickets for food but that isn't that bad. Feeding time is great with tem and t is fun to watch them own thier food and then swallow it. Just make sure that you feed them the proper sized crickets or there will b bits of hem al over the tank, or just have fish that will eat the its that fall out. Good luck and kep the tank covered at all times.

[flamingo]

Yeah, i've had them before. Very neat little guys and was planning to get a bunch but they stopped gettign them in. And I definitely wouldn't put them in with hatchets. They'll be fine for about a week then you'll notice half of them missing.

My butterfly fish was wierd, it was at the bottom of the tank 50 percent of the time. It used to love to swim to the bottom and wedge in between plants and just lay there.

They have a great personality and are very beautiful, only downfall is they creep out most people because they're eyes always look like they are mad and those long purple feelers (which I like the most out of the whole fish lol).

Also sometimes referred to as the poorman's arowana.

[Baby_Baby]

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile6.html

[tromeokid]

i also have one of these. he is a great looking fish but not active at all and im actually thinking about trading/selling him. just much fun IMO. thats just me.

[preditorfish]

I have a Saber Tooth Payara and I have it in a 500g aquarium do I need a bigger aquarium when it is older?

>>>help

[Scuba Kid]

why are you posting about it here?

But to answer your question, that would be the minimum for a full grown payara. But good luck raising it to an adult, as this fish has a high mortality rate in aquaria and is EXTREMELY sensative to water quality.

[kuhliloach]

the smallest things i have are ADF's and kuhliloaches...wil they eat or harm them?

[fishbguy]

they prolly won't harm the loaches cause, IME they stay burried in the gravel alot and don't come to the surface unless you are trying to net them. i'm not sure about the frogs. they might eat them when they come to the top for air or when they are lounging around at the surface like mine used to do.
What size tank do you have?

[kuhliloach]

should i dare say it> ok... here goes nothing...10gallon?