🐠 Blackback Butterflyfish (Chaetodon melannotus)
Marine Fish-Only Butterflyfish • Diagonal-Striped Display Fish • Peaceful Mid-Level Swimmer • Intermediate Marine Fish
 
📋 The Blackback Butterflyfish (Chaetodon melannotus) is an attractive marine butterflyfish with a silvery-white body crossed by diagonal black stripes, a black eye band, and a yellow face, snout, and fins.
Native to lagoon patch reefs, reef flats, and fore-reef slopes across the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea and East Africa to Japan and Micronesia, Blackback Butterflyfish feed almost exclusively on soft coral polyps in the wild, along with smaller amounts of stony coral polyps, anemones, and algae.
We want to be upfront: this species is not considered reef safe, as it will nip at and eat soft corals, stony coral polyps, anemones, tube worms, and ornamental shrimp. It's best suited to a fish-only or FOWLR (fish-only-with-live-rock) aquarium rather than a coral display. Naturally peaceful and hardy once settled, it readily adapts to captivity and a varied diet, though it can show some aggression toward other butterflyfish of similar pattern or colouration in smaller tanks.
With a spacious fish-only tank offering open swimming space and hiding places, it thrives as a Distinctive Fish-Only Display Species.
 
⚫⚪ Highlights
⚫⚪ Striking Diagonal Striping: Silvery body with bold black diagonal lines and yellow fins
🐟 Hardy & Adaptable: Readily accepts a wide variety of foods once settled
⚠️ Not Reef Safe: Will eat soft and stony coral polyps, anemones, and tube worms
🧠 Peaceful Temperament: Gets along well with non-aggressive tank mates
🏠 Best in Fish-Only Setups: Well suited to a spacious FOWLR aquarium