Leatherjacket Filefish
Leatherjacket Filefish
Currently unavailable
We do not take backorders on live fish, invertebrates or plants. Livestock arrives on the shipping schedule our suppliers and the weather allow, so we will not promise a date we cannot keep.
What is in the tanks changes from week to week. Ask us and we will tell you what is in and what is coming, or check back shortly. Visit us or get in touch.
Free local pickup at our Lethbridge store. Livestock guarantee
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Filefish are named for their rough, sandpapery skin, and the threadfin leatherjacket (Paramonacanthus filicauda) is a small Indo-Pacific member of the family. It has the compressed, leaf-shaped body typical of the group, a first dorsal spine that raises and locks, and mottled tan to olive patterning that helps it disappear against rubble and weedy bottoms. It swims slowly, sculling with its rear fins.
Aquarium care
- Filefish are not reliably reef safe. Many individuals pick at corals, tube worms and small ornamental invertebrates, and behaviour varies from fish to fish.
- Best kept in a fish-only or fish-with-live-rock system unless you accept that risk.
- A slow, deliberate feeder that needs time at the food and calm tankmates.
- Takes finely chopped meaty foods, frozen mysis and enriched brine; variety matters.
- Wants a quiet tank with structure to shelter among, and moderate rather than fierce flow.
- Easily bullied by fast, aggressive fish.
It suits a patient marine keeper running a calmer fish-only display, alongside cardinalfish, small gobies, dartfish or similarly gentle species. Avoid pairing it with large wrasses, triggers or boisterous damsels. Stock rotates and this fish appears only occasionally; local pickup at our Lethbridge store. Browse current saltwater fish.
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