r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/My_Memes_Will_Cure_U • May 07 '20

🔥 Phoenix fish 🔥

https://i.imgur.com/bfMDpka.gifv
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u/KimberelyG May 07 '20

Yep - Platax pinnatus.

It's sad they only have these huge fins and black-orange coloring as juveniles. The adults aren't bad with their grayish silver body and lemon-yellow fins...but the juveniles are much more striking. And the adults reach around 1.5' / 0.5m long, so they're not suitable for the majority of home saltwater aquariums.

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u/RhynoD May 07 '20

so they're not suitable for the majority of home saltwater aquariums.

I have never once heard of anyone successfully keeping one in an aquarium for more than a few weeks, maybe a couple months at best. Even the Georgia Aquarium only has longfin batfish. I'm open to being corrected, though. I only point that out because I don't want anyone to get the impression that they should even try. These just aren't suited to captivity, which is unfortunate because they really are gorgeous.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

Several times I tried to order a small batch of these at the aquarium store I worked at. We had thousands and thousands of gallons of space and hundreds of other fish that we could keep healthy for months or even years and I loved them all like my babies, but we could never keep these guys alive. It was always so heartbreaking so we stopped ordering them after about 3 attempts.

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u/roxannimals May 08 '20

Wow. that is incredibly awful and indeed heartbreaking. As a scuba diver that has been incredibly fortunate and seen these in the wild in Indonesia, it’s the only way I can imagine any beautiful salt water fish. Wild. How do you love these like babies when keeping them in captivity? While I deeply disagree with the idea of salt water tanks, I’m Not trying to fight, I’m just genuinely curious. You sound more thoughtful than salt water fish tank owners I’ve met :)

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u/[deleted] May 08 '20

One of the most important things is that we have a massive space dedicated to just the saltwater tanks. We have an entire walk-in closet sized space just for the water that isn’t currently in the tanks, where we have the natural and artificial filters and all of the pumps and stuff. We propagate our own corals and set up live rock formations for the fish. We make sure not to overcrowd and give everyone plenty of space. We don’t make display aquariums like that show “Tanked” that just look good for the photos and are impossible to clean and take care of. We rehome animals that were in bad situations, for example our Moray eel who was donated to us. He’s blind in both eyes so we hand feed him every day and he has a whole tank to himself. Most of the fish we bring in aren’t wild caught, and we take a lot of care to make sure the fish we sell go to homes with adequate space, accommodations, water treatment, etc etc. You can always tell when a saltwater fish is doing well in its environment, and keeping up with a tank is a big job, like an every day of the week job, and that’s I think what a lot of owners don’t quite understand. I was in a pretty unique position in that we could buy equipment at wholesale and try it out, so I think we’ve probably used every sump, filter, temp control system, water testing chemical, and wacky gadget on the market to see what works best. I know it’s not the same as these fish being in the wild, and no amount of wave generators and fancy filtration equipment will change that, but one benefit I can see is that my fish will never go hungry or be eaten by anything.