Painted frogfish

Care at a glance

Overview

Keep a painted frogfish alone in a tank of at least 110 litres with rock perches and open sand, at 24 to 27 C and pH 8.0 to 8.4. It will not bother corals but eats fish and shrimp up to nearly its own size, so no tankmates are truly safe. Feed with a feeding stick, starting on live shrimp and moving to thawed silversides and marine shrimp two or three times a week. Watch for overfeeding, as a bloated frogfish can regurgitate and foul the tank.

In the wild

The painted frogfish is a larger warty ambush predator that mimics a sponge, often covered in spots and blotches with darker rings. It comes in almost any colour, from black and maroon to yellow and orange, and can slowly shift shade over weeks to match its surroundings. Like other frogfish it walks over the bottom on hand-like fins rather than swimming much.

Good to know

Antennarius pictus reaches around 30 cm, larger than most frogfish in the trade. Its lure at the end of the illicium mimics a small worm or fish and is waved to attract prey. It periodically sheds a thin cuticle layer of skin, which helps it stay clean of algae and hitch-hiking growth.

Did you know

A painted frogfish can gradually change colour over several weeks to blend into a new sponge or patch of reef, so the same fish may be bright yellow one month and deep black the next.

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