Some aquarium fish are more of a pet than just an observation object. They grow larger than usual and communicate with their keeper. It is often not clear who is observing whom more intensively: the vertebrate in front of the aquarium or the one behind it. Datnioides quadrifasciatus clearly belongs to this category of fish. With a maximum length of 30-40 cm (although most specimens in nature only grow to around 20 cm) they are large fish for large aquaria. The water for this species should be hard and above all, the pH-value should be above 8, as these tiger perches also often occur in brackish water and tolerate soft, acidic water only very badly.
These predatory fish become so tame that they take food (preferably frozen, whole fish of suitable size) from the forceps. They also eat them from the fingers, but with larger specimens this can be painful…
More recently, D. quadrifasciatus, which we import from Vietnam, has been synonymized with D. polota from India. We do not follow this view, because Datnioides polota from India differs significantly in colour from our Vietnamese. However, the name D. quadrifasciatus is not available in a scientific sense due to the current zoological nomenclature rules, so that it has to be assumed that in case of a revision of the tigerfish a name change will be necessary.
For our customers: the animals have code 414104 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply the wholesale trade.
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
