African Butterfly Fish

[Videl]

Has anyone have good experiences with African Butterfly Fish. I am thinking of getting one small African Butterfly Fish with a few (5) cardinal tetras and a couple of Kuhli loaches for my 10-12 gallon 2 foot tank partially planted with small drift wood. Are these good tank mates. Is the 12 gal adequate space to house all these fish. If not, what fish to take out so that the tank is not overcrowded. Is the tank possible to house an ABF by itself because i really want one. Thankyou for any responses.

 

[andywg]

I bought 4 of these and have had three commit suicide by jumping out of the tank.

Some people say that fish under 2" are unsafe with butterflies and they certainly have a mouth to take down fair size prey. However Mine almost never left the surface and as such the neons I kept with mine were left alone.

I think you can get away with one in a 10 gallon, though I don't know how your filtration would handle a potential 4" predatory fish.

 

[STEVIE]

Your cardinals will sooner or later be on the butterflys diet.Mine ate all my neons and also my guppies.
Danger time is when you feed them.The smaller fish come to the surface to eat and the butterfly grabs and eats them.
My butterfly fish won't touch flake food or anything like that.I feed him crickets and other bugs.

 

[Clairepriest]

I've had my butterfly for around 7 months. He/she is full grown (about 4" head to tail base) He can get a bit 'jumpy' when eating but he's never jumped out or even hit the hood as far as I can tell. I've got a hood with a 'feeding flap' so he'd have to be a good shot to jump out!

He shares his tank with white cloud mountain minnows and pretty tetras and he's never eaten any of them. In fact he very rarely moves from the surface unless I clean the tank or do a water change and then he'll hide in a corner and change colour to a pale mushroom shade (he's normally chocolate brown with sparkly scales ).

He happily eates flake, and tubifex/bloodworm/daphnia that I give my knife fish. He's very active and great fun to watch. My water is medium hard, 7.2pH

If you do get one, mine likes hiding in plants that float. He's quite shy. He's got a massive gob though - it resembles the back of an aircraft carrier Highly recommended if you like something different.