Hatchet Fish Compatability

[Taridan]

Hi, I'm looking at getting a shoal of Hatchet fish, and I was wondering what would be good tank mates. I currently have a female betta and platies and a pleco in my community tank, though the Betta could be moved if needed. Also, I know the hatchet fish are surface feeders... would Hikari Micro Pellets be a good food for them? Any advice at all on hatchet fish would be appreciated, as I'm still in the research stage of thinking about getting them.

 

[three-fingers]

Hatchet fish are perfectly fine with most fish, they are peaceful and fast.
You need to have a VERY tight fitting lid. They can somehow manage to get through even the smallest gaps(even the ones for your filter/heater cable).
Flakes are your best bet for food, though mine are so fast they can eat the catfish pellets i put in.

If your going to get them it would be better if you had soft acidic water, they are adaptable but very hard water should be avoided .

 

[nmonks]

Hatchets are superb fish, but tricky. The smaller species (e.g. marble hatchets) are rather delicate and need soft, acid water and apparently live or frozen foods, not just flake. The larger species (e.g. silver hatchets) are more robust and forgiving. But still, as three-fingers says, soft/acid is the way to go.

I keep silver hatchets and find them to be very entertaining. They are surprisingly aggressive to one another (perhaps having just three specimens isn't sufficient?). No harm is done, but there is much chasing. The ignore the other fish mostly, the only fish they seem to interact with are the glassfish: the two species seem to "school" together some of the time. They inhabit the middle of the tank, not the top. The smaller hatchets do seem to be more surface-dwelling fish, by contrast.

Silver hatchets are incredibly greedy, and this seems to be a hatchet feature. They need a lot of food to stay healthy. Not sure why. Perhaps the large flight muscles use up a lot of energy, even if the fish aren't flying? Regardless, these are fish that will eat until they are bursting. They love bloodworms and small pieces of prawn and mussel. But they will also bite me when my hand is the tank! Quite a surprise!

In short, lovely fish, totally unexpected in their degree of entertainment, but slightly more difficult than the average "tetra".

I'd worry about the platy (needs hard/alkaline) and the betta (might get nipped) but beyond that these fish are easy to mix with anything. They even avoid my South American puffers.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[three-fingers]

The smaller species (e.g. marble hatchets) are rather delicate and need soft, acid water and apparently live or frozen foods, not just flake.

From what I've experienced the part about feeding is pretty true, i probably should have mentioned it . At first when i got them they would only eat freeze dried tubifex worms, but they quickly started eating what the other fish were eating within a few weeks. They even eat fast sinking catfish pellets now.
I only have two marbled hatchets and they are very peaceful, the other fish go up to them at night time to sleep, which is pretty cool. My red eye tetras like to chase them sometimes, but the hatchets can stand up for themselves and chase back(as long as they are in the upper levels of the tank).
I keep mine in soft water with a pH of 6.5, and they seem pretty resistant to high nitrates(like i get when i go on holiday). If they get scared though, the will jump . I started off with three .