🐠 Tear Drop Butterflyfish (Chaetodon unimaculatus)
A White-to-Yellow Body With a Bold Black Teardrop Spot • Bold Vertical Stripes Front and Back • A Hardy, Useful Aiptasia Hunter
 
📋 A note on naming: the Tear Drop Butterflyfish is easily confused with its closely related counterpart, the Yellow Teardrop Butterflyfish (Chaetodon interruptus), which is overall yellow in colour rather than this species' white-to-yellow gradient.
This species, also known as the Pacific Teardrop, Four Eyed, Limespot, or Onespot Butterflyfish, has a simple, elegant white body transitioning to yellow toward the dorsal side, with a large black teardrop-shaped eyespot in the midsection and bold vertical stripes at the anterior and posterior ends. It comes from the reefs of the Indo-Pacific through to Hawaii, inhabiting reef and lagoon environments. Every Tear Drop Butterflyfish we ship is feeding well.
It's a hardy butterflyfish once properly acclimated, and it's peaceful toward its own kind and other species, doing well in a group if introduced simultaneously, though it should be housed with tankmates that won't bully it. It's not reef safe, and will nip at soft corals and eat various invertebrates, though it's also documented consuming nuisance Aiptasia anemones. It reaches up to 20cm, so plan on at least 340L.
 
💡 Highlights
🎨 White-Yellow Body With a Black Teardrop Spot: A simple, elegant butterflyfish
🔍 A Naming Note Worth Knowing: Easily confused with the Yellow Teardrop Butterflyfish
🦐 An Aiptasia Hunter: Documented consuming this common nuisance anemone
🪸 Not Reef Safe: Will nip at soft corals and eat various invertebrates
🍽️ Ships Feeding Well: Hardy once settled, commonly available