All fish / Chaetodontidae

Blacktail butterflyfish

Chaetodon austriacus

Also known as exquisite butterflyfish, red sea melon butterflyfish, black-tailed butterflyfish, blacktail butterfly, austriacus butterflyfish, ブラックテールバタフライフィッシュ, 红海三间蝶, 黑尾蝴蝶鱼

This is a bright yellow, disc-shaped butterflyfish with thin dark diagonal lines on the body, a black bar through the eye and a black tail and rear fins. It is found only in the Red Sea area, and keepers who want a rare, colourful reef fish value it highly.

Care at a glance

Care level

Hard

Temperament

Semi

Adult size

12 cm

Temperature

24 to 28 °C

pH

8.1 to 8.4

Smallest tank

400 litres

Keep as

Singly or as a mated pair

Diet

Carnivore: in the wild it feeds almost entirely on coral polyps; in captivity try mysis, brine shrimp, finely chopped seafood and coral-paste foods

Swims

Middle of the tank

Lifespan

5 to 7 years

Water

Marine (saltwater)

Wild range

Red Sea and Gulf of Aden

Breeding

It spawns in open water, scattering eggs that drift as plankton, and it pairs up in the wild. Nobody has reliably bred it in home aquariums.

Good to know

It is an obligate coral feeder that usually refuses aquarium foods and eats stony and soft coral polyps, so it is not reef safe and few survive for long in captivity. Do not confuse it with the similar melon butterflyfish (Chaetodon trifasciatus), which comes from the Indian Ocean and has no black tail.