Amazon leaf fish… thoughts? 🤔

Just recently looked into Amazon leaffish (Monocirrhus polyacanthus) since we have some in the store and they sound like something I might need to get in the future…
I’ve been really itching for a predatory fish that is the right size for a 20 gallon, and here is one!

They’re 3-inch ambush predators that live in black water in the Amazon and disguise themselves as a leaf. They remind me of Bushfish, which I’ve wanted for a while but are too big. And that black water environment has been right up my alley lately.

The catch? They need to eat 3 one-inch fish a day. So a) I’d be making a lot of trips for feeders and b) whatever tank they’re in couldn’t have tetras. If it weren’t for the latter I’d just go ahead and put them in my new tank. Still really tempted to keep them, but I don’t know where…

I’ve been getting kinda bored with my community tank lately. I had fun designing the aquascape for sure, but the actual fish in it don’t feel that interesting to me in comparison to the SA stuff, and I’d be more interested in another biotope tank than mixed community.

So theoretically, I might in the future want to tear down that tank and then either have a second South American/blackwater tank for the leaffish, or swap the two 20s for a 40 or 60 gallon SA tank.

OK looking at videos of them, they seem slow enough that I wonder if I kept them in a 20 gallon with neons, if the neons could just avoid them. I’d probably lose one every now and then, but if I had regular easier-to-catch feeder minnows for the leaffish maybe he’d leave the tetras alone

Well to avoid making the trip you could setup a guppy tank and raise your own feeders; other than that i have no clue about them. I think i read about them once but decided at the time i was more interested in other things. Btw don't put that finger too close

I wouldn't keep it with neon; i mean seems kind of expensive. I once put a 3 inch fish with my cardinals that I thought was safe and an hour later when i return i was missing several cardinals... oh well learned that lesson.

I find their inactivity with brief moments of action to be, um, kind of boring. I do think they're pretty in a subdued way.

Makes me think of a club show I went to with some cool kind of rare African cichlid video. We were given 3D glasses & loud music blaring. The fish barely moved, a few millimeters forward & back, not enhanced by the camera zooming in & out. Not my idea of a fun fish, although its blue/purple color was nice.

I don't really want fish that only eat live foods either. That's ruled out a few species for me. I feed live food on occasion & don't mind if some fry get eaten. But 3/day 1 inch fish seems like a lot to supply regularly. Buying feeders can be risky too. They are usually overcrowded & may come with diseases...They often don't get the care of "pet fish" tanks, that's why they're inexpensive.

Before you bring 1 home, watch them in the tank. It sounds like you work there? Maybe be the 1 to feed them several times to see if that's enough activity that you want at home & worth supplying their needs. Just my thoughts...sorry to be downer

I had three. They are fascinating, but they will catch any small tetra. They are good at what they do. They are heavy eaters of guppy sized fish. I only kept them so a friend could get good photos, and then passed them along. Eventually all of them were killed by diseased feeder guppies. It's their usual fate in aquariums.

I had tried training them to eat non living foods (shrimp chunks on sticks moving in front of them) but they aren't stupid.

The fact that they don't seem to move much makes me feel like it's not worth it to have a tank with just this species, and the fact that they eat tetras deters me from putting one in the mixed-species tank. Plus, I don't mind having to get feeders every now and then, but 3 0.15 cent feeder guppies a day is $7 dollars out of every single paycheck. I don't know if I like them enough for that.

I probably won’t get one for this tank. But they’re an interesting thing to keep on the radar

They have magnificent camouflage. It was often very hard to know if they were in the tank.

You know i have all these extra guppies i want to get rid of....