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 358 species
Noturus maydeni
Noturus maydeni is a tiny little riffle catfish from the Ozarks that lives tucked into cool, clear, fast water over gravel and rocks. Its claim to fame is being super range-limited (Black and St. Francis river drainages), and like other madtoms its pectoral spines can give you a nasty poke if you grab it wrong.
Gymnocorymbus ternetzi
Black skirts are those little "suit-and-tie" tetras with the dark bands and flowing fins that look way fancier than they should for how tough they are. They're super active midwater fish, and when you keep a proper group they do that tight, zippy schooling thing that makes the whole tank feel alive. Just give them enough buddies and finny tankmates they won't be tempted to nip.
Mylopharyngodon piceus
This is the big mollusk-crushing carp with the crazy pharyngeal teeth - once it hits juvenile size it starts hunting snails and clams and, as an adult, it is basically built to eat shells. It gets absolutely enormous (think pond/lake fish, not aquarium fish), and it tends to cruise low and feed near the bottom.
Eviota vader
Eviota vader is a truly tiny, purplish-black little reef goby from Papua New Guinea that was only described in 2025. It was named after Darth Vader because the whole fish is basically dark purple-black, which is wild for an Eviota. Its size is the big story here - at barely over 1 cm, its main challenge in aquariums would be making sure it actually gets enough to eat.
Eonemachilus niger
This is a tiny, deep-velvet-black stone loach from Yunnan, China, with the odd detail that the tail fin is not black like the rest of the fish. Its wild range is extremely limited, so its aquarium presence is basically nil - this is more of a conservation-interest species than something you will actually see for sale.
Poecilocharax weitzmani
Poecilocharax weitzmani is one of those tiny blackwater oddballs that acts more like a little darter than a typical tetra - it hangs low, darts between cover, and the males can get pretty showy with fin-flares. The really cool part is they are cave breeders with male brood care, which is not what most people expect from a small characin. Give them very soft, acidic, super-clean water and lots of leaf litter and hidey holes, and they settle in and start showing their best colors.
Xeniamia atrithorax
A tiny deep-reef cardinalfish described in 2016 that reaches about 3.0 cm SL. It has a distinctive dark melanophore patch on the chest/isthmus region and shows male mouthbrooding (brooding eggs reported in males). Recorded from the South China Sea off central Vietnam, with later records from Taiwan; reported from ~40–119 m depth (often ~70–119 m).
Cabillus nigromarginatus
Cabillus nigromarginatus is a very small marine goby (to about 3 cm) described from Rodrigues in the Western Indian Ocean, with records including Seychelles; it is known as the black-edge cabillus.
Diagramma melanacrum
This is a big Indo-West Pacific sweetlips/grunt that cruises reefs and hangs in caves, and it gets that cool yellow-and-silver look sprinkled with dark spots plus the really obvious black on the lower tail and the pelvic/anal fins. Juveniles show up in murkier estuary and silty reef areas, then the adults shift deeper and often sit in small groups until they go hunting at night. In aquariums its size is the whole story - it is a public-aquarium kind of fish once grown.
Trachipterus jacksonensis
This is one of those true open-ocean ribbonfish - long, silvery, and super weird-looking in the best way, with a tall red dorsal fin when its in good shape. Its a deepwater, roaming marine species that occasionally turns up nearshore or even in estuaries, but its not something you can realistically keep in a home aquarium.
Iniistius dea
This is one of the coolest "knife-bodied" wrasses - it hangs over open sand and, when it gets spooked or wants to sleep, it literally torpedoes straight into the sand. Give it a deep, fine sand bed and it will act totally different (and way more natural) than a typical rock-hugging reef wrasse. Adults are usually shy and cruisy with tankmates, but they are not forgiving about rough handling or sketchy setups.
Rasbora dorsinotata
This is a slim little Southeast Asian rasbora with a clean dark lateral stripe and a neat black tip on the dorsal fin. In a group it gets way more confident and you will see that tight midwater schooling behavior, especially in a planted tank with some flow.