🐠 Teira Batfish (Platax teira)
The Largest, Hardiest, Friendliest Batfish • Shifts Colour in Real Time • Plan the Tank for the Adult
 
📋 The Teira Batfish, also known as the Longfin Batfish, Longfin Platax, or Round-Faced Batfish, is often confused with the closely related Orbiculate Batfish, though it can be identified by a dark blotch beneath the pectoral fin and an elongated dark blotch just before the anal fin. Juveniles have long, flowing anal and dorsal fins with black-and-white vertical stripes and yellow lower fins, which shorten considerably as the fish matures into a rounder, more compact adult shape. It's native to a vast range across the Indo-West Pacific, from the Red Sea and East Africa to Papua New Guinea, north to the Ryukyu Islands, and south to Australia, inhabiting reefs, lagoons, and even shipwrecks.
It has a fascinating party trick: it can visibly shift its colouring in real time, changing from silvery white with no bands to brown with darker banding, and then fading back to silver again. It's one of the hardiest and most personable batfish available, settling quickly into robust community tanks, and it's a peaceful, social fish that forms schools with its own kind. It isn't reef safe: it will consume smaller fish, invertebrates, corals, and anemones.
The key to enjoying one is planning for the adult. It's the largest species in the Platax genus, growing to about 70cm, and juveniles are usually quite small when purchased but rapidly outgrow a small home aquarium. We recommend a minimum of 200 up to 500 gallons or more for a full adult, so please have a concrete long-term plan before you choose one.
 
💡 Highlights
🎨 Silvery-White Body With a Black Eye Band: An iconic, distinctive large batfish
📏 The Largest Platax: Grows to about 70cm, so plan the tank size
🌈 Real-Time Colour Shifting: Visibly changes from silver to brown banding and back
😊 Hardy and Personable: One of the friendliest batfish
🌿 Not Reef Safe: Will consume smaller fish, invertebrates, corals, and anemones