African Butterfly Fish and Dragon Eel

I'm assuming by dragon eel you mean "violet goby" and they are brackish so that wont work because the african butterfly is freshwater.

I had an abf, but sadly it died. While I had it it ate flake food(ive read its hard to get them to do that). Feeding it crickets was dificult because the other fish got to them first, or they were able to climb out the corner of the tank. it was a really cool fish. If you find a freshwater subsitute for the "eel" idea (tire trak? dojo loach?) you will want to consider some mid-level fish to even out the tank. my abf NEVER went more than 2" below the surface, and your tank will look empty.

Your over-stocking too much

Seaman said:

I'm assuming by dragon eel you mean "violet goby" and they are brackish so that wont work because the african butterfly is freshwater.

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I agree, dragon gobies are very suspect to tumours and severe infection while living in full strength FW. They're BW to Marine in the wild. They need at least BW.

I cannot point you to a site, but I did have an ABF for a couple of years when I was in high School (way long ago ). Mine was happy with flake food as well as little house spiders I caught here and there and the occasional fly. Make sure you have a tight top, they are prone to leaping. I am not sure what the actual lifespan is on these fish, but mine went two years or better before I started losing interest in my fish for extracurricular activities (read girls and dating) and just stopped replacing fish. HTH

I've heard alot of them will take flake food, but I've also heard they'll take nothing short of frozen foods. They're not predators as they look, they're actually filter feeders and feed off plankton and algae mostly. They do feed off small inverts as well.

Hello I'm new to the forum. Anyways I have had my ABF for 3 months. Most of them are wild caught and will not eat flakes so don't get your hopes up. I feed mine crikets. If you plan to keep him in the tanks in your sig you better make room because both of them are VERY overstocked already. You will need a strong lid and you need to cover all surface area because they jump out a lot. Also if you don't have a ph around 6.5 you will have problems with this guy, and they thrive with peat filtered water. They don't like current and will eat other small surface fish. If you want a pic of mine I'll post. Hope this helps.

"They're not predators as they look, they're actually filter feeders and feed off plankton and algae mostly. They do feed off small inverts as well."

Actually, they are predators that mostly eat bugs and any small fish unlucky enough to travel to the surface. Them eating algae just doesn't make much sense since they only swim at the surface and have an upturned mouth -not a lot of algae floats by. And as for filtering, they keep their mouths closed and have a trapdoor style mouth....which isn't conducive, as far as I'm aware, to filter feeding.

As for the pH issue, I have to disagree. As long as they're properly acclimated any "normal" pH is fine. My water is not 6.5 in that tank (more like 7.1) and she's just fine).

If you do a search on this site for pantodon buchholzi you should find plenty of info.