Search Species
Search for fish species by common or scientific name, or use filters to browse by water type, size, temperament, and difficulty.
Water Type
Search for fish species by common or scientific name, or use filters to browse by water type, size, temperament, and difficulty.
Found 255 species
Bathophilus kingi
Bathophilus kingi is a tiny deep-sea dragonfish that lives way down in the dark, with that classic stomiid vibe: slim body, big teeth, and built for hunting in open water. It is not an aquarium fish in any realistic sense - it is a bathypelagic marine species that comes from extreme depths where pressure and conditions are totally different from home tanks.
Emblemariopsis lancea
This is a tiny little Caribbean tube blenny that lives tucked into holes in reef rock, corals, and even sponges, basically poking its head out like a grumpy periscope. The showy part is the male display - a darkened head with an anterior dorsal fin that can flash a red-over-white "banner" when it is posturing.
Springeria folirostris
This is a deepwater skate from the Gulf of Mexico with a really funky leaf-like snout extension and those "leg-like" pelvic fins skates are famous for. It lives way down on soft mud/sand bottoms, so its whole vibe is slow, bottom-oriented, and built for cruising the seabed rather than darting around the water column.
Kanekonia leichhardti
This is a tiny, bottom-hugging velvetfish from northern Australia that lives out on deeper, gritty sand. Its whole vibe is camouflage and sitting still, and it is absolutely not an aquarium trade fish - more of a scientific-record species than something you will ever see for sale.
Paradiancistrus lombokensis
This is a tiny, super-cryptic marine brotula from around Lombok, Indonesia - the kind of fish that lives tucked deep in reef cracks where you basically never see it. The really neat part is its group (viviparous brotulas) gives live birth, so its biology is way cooler than its shy little "hide in the rocks" lifestyle suggests.
Festucalex prolixus
This is a tiny little marine pipefish from the Western Central Pacific, and it tops out around 3.6 cm standard length. What's wild is that most of what we know comes from planktonic specimens collected in the upper water column, with adults expected deeper than about 40 m - so it is not really an aquarium species you will run into.
Upeneus supravittatus
This is a small goatfish from the eastern Indian Ocean (Sri Lanka and southern India) that spends its time cruising near the bottom and rummaging through sand with its chin barbels. The cool part is watching it "hunt" - it will probe and sift like a little metal detector, then pounce on tiny buried critters. Not really a typical home-aquarium fish, but if you did keep one, you'd treat it like a sand-sifting predator that needs space and a mature, food-rich system.
Jordania zonope
Jordania zonope is a super cool coldwater marine sculpin from the NE Pacific that clings to rocks and kelp and will even hang vertically on rock faces. Males get very territorial in breeding season, and some individuals are reported to act like little cleaner fish on bigger predators like lingcod - wild stuff for a fish this small.
Bathycongrus wallacei
This is a marine, deepwater (bathydemersal) conger eel reported from roughly 250-500 m depth in the Indo-West Pacific (including the southwestern Indian Ocean and Japan/Taiwan). It is a pale greyish eel shading paler below, with dorsal/anal fins that become increasingly blackish posteriorly and a black caudal fin; maximum reported total length is about 55 cm.
Myliobatis longirostris
This is a snouted eagle ray from the eastern Pacific (Gulf of California down to northern Peru) that cruises sandy coastal areas and digs out crunchy stuff like clams and crabs. Cool fish, but in real life its a big, roaming ray - not something that belongs in normal home aquariums unless youre talking a true public-aquarium-scale setup.
Oxycirrhites typus
This is that red-and-white, candy-cane striped hawkfish with the absurdly long snout that just sits up on rock or gorgonians like it owns the place. It is a perch-and-pounce micropredator, so it will nail small crustaceans (and anything shrimp-sized you were hoping to keep). Give it lots of ledges and hidey holes and you will basically get a tiny reef "watchdog" that posts up and stares at you all day.
Zaphotias pedaliotus
This is a tiny deep-sea bristlemouth that lives way down in the midwater-dark and comes up and down the water column on a day-night cycle. Its little light organs (photophores) and even a slight nightly color shift are part of the whole "life in the deep" vibe - super cool, but absolutely not a home-aquarium fish.