🐠 Spotfin Butterflyfish (Chaetodon ocellatus)
Marine Not-Reef-Safe Peaceful Butterflyfish • White Body With a Black Eye Bar & Yellow Fins • Genuine Documented Nighttime Transformation • Intermediate Marine Fish
 
📋 The Spotfin Butterflyfish, also known as the Spotfin Reef Butterfly, has a genuinely bold white body with bright yellow pelvic and caudal fins, a narrow yellow bar from the gill to the pectoral fin base, and a vivid black vertical bar running through the eye, named for the small black spot at the end of the dorsal fin.
Native to the Western Atlantic, from the east coast of the United States to Brazil, this species inhabits the clear, shallow waters of coral reefs.
We want to share a genuinely fascinating fact: at night, this species undergoes a remarkable transformation, with the dusky smudge on its dorsal fin becoming black and broad while dark bands appear across the body. It's also genuinely documented sometimes swimming upside down, and occasionally squirting water like a fountain above the waterline. This is genuinely one of the more peaceful, hardy butterflyfish species, adapting reasonably well to aquarium life, though it can genuinely be a finicky eater at first, sometimes requiring live foods to entice feeding. We want to be upfront: this species is not reef safe, feeding on anemones, soft corals, tube worms, and other small marine invertebrates in the wild.
 
⚪⚫ Highlights
🎨 White Body With a Black Eye Bar & Yellow Fins: A genuinely bold, distinctive butterflyfish
🌙 Genuine Nighttime Transformation: Develops dark banding and a broadened dorsal spot after dark
💦 Genuine Documented Water-Squirting: Occasionally squirts water above the waterline
⚠️ Not Reef Safe: Will eat anemones, soft corals, and small invertebrates
😌 Genuinely Peaceful: Coexists well with a variety of tank mates