Zebra dartfish

Care at a glance

Overview

The zebra dartfish is a peaceful, barred fish for the open water of a reef tank. It is easy to keep.

Caring for the zebra dartfish

Give zebra dartfish a tank of 29 gal (110 L) or more. Lay a live sand bed for burrowing and refuge, with open swimming space above it. Fit a secure, tight-fitting lid, since dartfish jump when startled.

Keep the water at 72 to 79°F (22 to 26°C) and a pH of 8.1 to 8.4. Offer small meaty foods such as brine shrimp, mysis and finely chopped krill. Feed small portions several times a day, to match their steady picking at plankton in the wild.

Zebra dartfish are peaceful and reef safe, leaving corals and invertebrates alone and rarely causing trouble with other fish. Never house them with aggressive or overly boisterous tank mates, which will keep them pinned in their burrow.

They settle in best in a group of two to five added at the same time. A group hovers together and looks far bolder than a lone fish tends to be. Breeding them is hard.

Good to know

The zebra dartfish belongs to the family Ptereleotridae and is also called the Chinese zebra goby. It is pale blue-gray, with a series of thin dark bars down the body that give it its common name. Like its dartfish relatives, it lacks the fused pelvic disc of true gobies. It swims freely rather than resting flat on rock.

In the wild

The zebra dartfish ranges across the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea to the Line and Marquesas Islands. It reaches from the Ryukyu Islands of Japan south to the Great Barrier Reef. It typically lives on exposed seaward reefs, in shallow water around 2 to 4 meters deep. Small groups hover over sand and rubble patches near the reef edge, sharing a network of burrows. It also shelters in rock crevices or barnacle holes, or digs a burrow beneath a rock in sand, and retreats there when alarmed.

Common questions

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