Favorite strange / oddball FW fish ?

[dapellegrini]

Seems the more I explore, the more strange fish I find in the FW hobby that I would not have thought existed. So what are your favorite oddball fish?

Mine:

Dwarf Puffers
Bumblebee Gobies
Farlowella Acus

FWIW, all of these guys are thriving in my FW tank with no addition of salt...

Others that have caught my attention:

FW Clams (ok, it's not a fish)
FW Pipefish - really a BW fish
Hillstream Loach

 

[richiestang_78]

Heres mine:

Black Ghost Knife not really too strange but a cool fish

Butterfly Fish

Freshwater Lionfish and Stingray, put them together cause Ive seen pics of them but never persoanlly seen one.

Id have to agree with you about the clam, kinda cool and am thinking about getting one.

 

[dapellegrini]

Good ones!

I saw a lion fish in a LFS the other week. Very cool looking fish, with a very big mouth. I didn't know there were FW stingrays...

If the Black Ghost Knife didn't get so big, I might have one And the butterfly fish look like they are just waiting for you to open the top of your tank so they can make the next leap in evolution (to your carpet).

 

[plecoperson]

Phenablennius heyligeri

 

[dapellegrini]

Is that some kind of Goby?

 

[richiestang_78]

Fresh Water Stingray, Potamotrygon motoro if your interested in looking it up.

 

[dapellegrini]

I did see those once, in a LFS many, many years ago. The orange spots are very cool looking.

Now if only there was a dwarf version that only got 6-inches or so...

 

[IceH2O]

Ctenopoma acutirostre aka Spotted climbing perch

watching them stalk their prey and telescope their mouths out is awesome.

 

[hc8719]

dragon goby and african butterfly fish

dapelligrini, i dont think the fw puffer/farlowella need a brackish enviroment

 

[plecoperson]

Is that some kind of Goby?

Yes....it's a freshwater goby from Vietnam that gets to about 2 inches...drool.....

 

[jbarr]

Do Bichirs count?

 

[bsmith782]

im going with the scarlet gem (dario dario) there so awesome in my 12g eclipse tank with a bunch of c.habrosus (a type of dwarf cory) and my L134 leopard frog pleco. all small fish you gotta love it!

B

 

[dapellegrini]

I think a dragon goby is kinda like a bichir, right? Either way, yes, I would call that an odd ball fish.

Is the dario dario aggressive? That is a cool fish. In that vein, another fish that is more rare than odd is Microrasbora "galaxy":

In fact, it would be cool to include photos of the fish here as plecoperson did:

Dario Dario:

Bichir:

Dragon Goby:

African Butterfly:

Spotted climbing perch :

Freshwater Stingray:

Lion Fish:

Black Knife:

Hill Stream Loach:

Freshwater Pipefish:

Bumblebee Goby:

Dwarf Puffer:

Farlowella Acus:

Freshwater Clam:

Any others?

 

[Toirtis]

Polypteriformes

Protopterus and Neoceratodus

Ctenopoma and Microctenopoma

Potamotrygonidae

...and I own a number of them, and am working on obtaining most of the ones I do not.

 

[coldmachineUK]

The galaxy raspora is fairly new to the hobby: I am guessing this fish is going to become one of the most popular in a couple of years time for sure. It's beautiful, and if I had the room I'd be keeping some myself!

For me, favourite of all 'oddball' fish are the brackish puffers 'figure eight' (F8 ) - tetraodon biocellatus - and 'green spotted' (GSP) - tetraodon nigroviridis.

F8:

GSP:

 

[dapellegrini]

Thanks for adding the pics.

Polypteriformes = Bichir

Protopterus/Neoceratodus (AKA African/Australian Lungfish) -- Never heard of this one before. Looks like they can get HUGE:

Ctenopoma / Microctenopoma -- Kinds of climbing Perch

Potamotrygonidae - FW Stringray

 

[Mosaic]

I'd die to have a snakehead, but someone had to go ruin it for everyone.

As for species within my reach, I vote for the Ctenopoma too.

 

[Sicklid]

I had two very large (so I thought) snakeheads as a kid in NY... They were cool fish. I knew they got big, but not THAT big as in the above photo!

 

[beblondie]

bichirs

 

[hsherman1986]

i loved my farlowella. He was my favorite. Only lasted a week from the lfs though, then he died, not sure why decided not to try it again.

i really like the african butterfly fish, i hope to own one of those some day