Fish Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ fish species — freshwater, saltwater, reef, and pelagic — with habitat, size, diet, behavior, and how to tell them apart.
Red Devil Cichlid
A bold, thick-lipped Nicaraguan cichlid known for its fiery orange-red or white coloration and famously feisty, combative temperament.
freshwater
Blind Cave Tetra
A ghostly pink, eyeless cavefish descended from surface-dwelling Mexican tetras, adapted over millennia to life in total darkness within Mexican limestone caves.
freshwater
Blobfish
A gelatinous deep-sea sculpin whose flesh is slightly less dense than water, letting it hover just above the seafloor without expending much energy swimming.
deepseaSlickhead
A dark, soft-bodied deep-sea fish named for its smooth, scaleless head, drifting slowly along cold continental slopes far beyond the reach of sunlight.
deepsea
Nile Perch
A large, silvery-grey freshwater predator with a distinctive dark eye and deep body, native to major African river systems and infamous for its ecological impact after introduction to Lake Victoria.
freshwater
Mono
A shimmering, disc-shaped fish with a strongly flattened body and tall, angular fins, native to Indo-Pacific estuaries. Adults school in brackish coastal waters and shift gradually toward full seawater as they mature.
brackish
Glass Knifefish
A slender, near-transparent South American fish that swims using a continuous rippling fin and emits a weak electric field to sense its surroundings.
freshwater
Chinese Algae Eater
An elongated Southeast Asian freshwater fish with a specialized sucker mouth used to graze algae from rocks, becoming increasingly territorial as it matures.
freshwater
Chili Rasbora
One of the smallest cyprinids in the aquarium hobby, the Chili Rasbora is an intensely red nano fish native to Borneo's acidic blackwater swamps.
freshwater
Spotted Seatrout
A slender estuarine predator of the southeastern United States, recognized by the bold black spots scattered across its silvery back and dorsal fin.
brackish
Crevalle Jack
A powerfully built, silvery jack with a steep forehead and a black spot on its gill cover, common along coastal and estuarine waters of the Atlantic.
pelagic
Texas Cichlid
The only cichlid native to the United States, this pearly, turquoise-spotted fish thrives in the rivers of Texas and northeastern Mexico.
freshwater
Celestial Pearl Danio
A tiny, jewel-like danio with a dark blue body covered in pearly spots and orange-red banded fins, discovered only in the mid-2000s in Myanmar.
freshwater
Bagre Catfish
A silvery marine and estuarine catfish of the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, recognizable by its elongated sail-like dorsal fin filament and mouth-brooding parenting behavior.
saltwater
Porcupinefish
A spine-covered, inflatable reef fish found in warm seas worldwide; nocturnal and slow-moving, it shelters in reef crevices by day and forages for hard-shelled prey at night.
reef
Molly
A hardy, adaptable livebearer native to Mexico and Central America, the common molly thrives in fresh, brackish, and even marine water and is one of the most popular beginner aquarium fish.
freshwater
Tomcod
The Atlantic tomcod is a small, estuarine member of the cod family found along the northwestern Atlantic coast, notable for tolerating brackish and nearly fresh water unlike most of its relatives.
brackish
Brown Surgeonfish
A small, plain brown Indo-Pacific tang that is nonetheless one of the most abundant algae-grazing reef fish, playing a key role in controlling reef algal growth.
reef
Bluestriped Grunt
A vividly striped Caribbean reef fish with a bright yellow body crossed by narrow electric-blue lines, often seen in dense daytime schools beneath reef ledges.
reef
Bicolor Anthias
A small Indo-Pacific reef fish sharply divided in color, with a violet-purple front half and a golden-yellow rear half, forming loose groups above reef structure.
reef
Flame Hawkfish
A brilliant red-orange reef fish that perches motionless atop branching coral, darting out to ambush small prey.
reef
Ballan Wrasse
The largest wrasse in northern European waters, a stout rocky-reef fish with highly variable green, brown, or reddish mottling.
saltwater
Cleaner Wrasse
The Cleaner Wrasse is a slender fish with a bold black horizontal stripe and blue body, famous for removing parasites and dead tissue from other reef fish at dedicated cleaning stations.
reef
High-hat
A striking black-and-white striped reef drum related to the jackknife-fish, easily recognized by its tall, elongated dorsal fin.
reef