Fish That Start With L - Page 2 of 2
Browse all aquarium fish species with common names beginning with "L". Each profile includes care requirements, water parameters, tank size recommendations, and compatibility information for freshwater, marine, and brackish species.
Longnose eagle ray
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.
Longnose hawkfish
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.
Longray fangjaw
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.
Longsnout armored searobin
Paraheminodus longirostralis
This is a deepwater armored searobin - basically a little walking tank of a fish with bony plates and feeler-like rays it uses to hunt along the bottom. Its claim to fame is the extra-long snout projections, and it lives way down on the slope, not in the usual home-aquarium zone. Realistically, this is a research-trawl kind of species rather than something you keep at home.
Longspine drum
Umbrina analis
Umbrina analis is an Eastern Pacific sciaenid (drum/croaker) that inhabits inshore soft bottoms (sand/mud) from the tip of Baja and the SW Gulf of California to Colombia, typically near the bottom in surf zones, bays, and shallow coastal waters (about 1–50 m). It is a carnivore feeding mainly on mobile benthic invertebrates (crustaceans, worms, and mollusks).
Longtail pencilsmelt
Nansenia longicauda
This one is a deepwater pencilsmelt that lives way down in the mesopelagic zone, so its more of a research-species than an aquarium fish. It tops out around 13 cm and seems to show up in patchy spots in the subtropical Atlantic and North Pacific, typically hundreds of meters down.
Lowe's tetra
Hyphessobrycon loweae
This is a tiny Upper Xingu tetra that can glow gold in the right light, with males showing that cool elongated dorsal fin. It does best when you keep a real group and give it a calm, planted setup so it feels bold enough to come out and color up.
Lowfin moray
Gymnothorax porphyreus
Gymnothorax porphyreus is a chunky, cold-to-cool water moray from the South Pacific that hangs out on rocky reefs and wedges itself into caves with just the head out. It tops out around a meter long, so it is absolutely a big, powerful predator even though it is not one of the giant 2-meter morays. If you ever see one offered for home aquariums, the big gotcha is temperature - this is not a tropical reef eel.
Lucap sole
Zebrias lucapensis
A small marine demersal sole (family Soleidae) described from Lucap Bay / Hundred Islands area of Lingayen Gulf, Philippines; known from very limited records. Aquarium care information is not species-specific in the literature; if kept, husbandry would likely follow general small marine sole/flatfish needs (fine sand, peaceful tankmates, benthic meaty foods).
Lutea sleeper
Eleotris lutea
Eleotris lutea is a tiny little sleeper (eleotrid) that hangs out on the bottom in coastal/estuary type habitats and tends to just park itself and watch the world go by. Its wild environment is listed as marine and brackish (and it is amphidromous), so it is one of those fish people often mis-label as "freshwater goby" even though it usually does best with some salt and stable conditions.