Archer Fish – 10cm

The archer fish form a monotypic family, Toxotidae, of fish known for their habit of preying on land-based insects and other small animals by shooting them down with water droplets from their specialized mouths.

Archers derive their scientific name from the word “Toxotes”, meaning bowman or archer. If you’ve ever seen one in action, you’ll understand how they earned that name. Archers hang just below the surface of the water watching for insects. When a bug ventures near the water, the Archer spits a stream of water at its prey so quickly that the hapless insect never sees it coming. Insects have to stay far away from the water to avoid becoming lunch, as the Archer fish is capable of accurately shooting streams of water up to one-and-a-half meters into in the air.  Young archerfish start shooting when they are about 2.5 cm (1 in) long but are inaccurate at first and must learn from experience. During this learning period, they hunt in small schools. This way, the probability is enhanced that at least one jet will hit its target.

All Archers have a deep, laterally compressed, silver-colored body that is punctuated by black bands on the edges of the dorsal and anal fins. The jaw is large and upturned, perfect for feeding at the surface. What you can’t see is the deep groove in the roof of its mouth that is behind the Archer’s amazing spitting ability. By pressing its tongue against the roof of its mouth, it forms a tube through which water is forced by rapidly closing the gill covers. To augment its hunting ability, the Archer has large eyes and a straight upper body line which allows it to lie very close to the top of the water without breaking the surface.

Archer fish have more developed eyes than most fish. The binocular vision allows them to focus forward and judge longer distances to aid their hunting technique. While archer fish mouths go above the surface to shoot down prey, the rest of the body remains submerged. Their eyesight does not account for refraction of light against the water, so they must learn to aim for accuracy. Small fry quickly learn the best place to see a prey item is directly underneath it.

Archer fish can be found in estuaries with brackish water around mangroves. (Brackish water is the combination of both salt and freshwater.) They often venture into lakes and rivers in search of food. These fish migrate to saltwater and freshwater areas; however, they do not do so for breeding like most other fish. Archer fish are widespread geographically, ranging from East Africa, through the coastal waters surrounding Asia, all the way to Australia.

Archer fish live in a schooling group. They do best in smaller groups of about four individuals. Since they are predators and can prey on smaller fish, they do best when those in the school are all of similar size. They tend to remain at the surface for feeding; they won’t bother other fish that remain at lower water levels.

A fairly large aquarium is need  – at least 55 gallons, but ideally something closer to 90 gallons. Archerfish are schooling fish, so you need to have a tank large enough to accommodate a group of them, keeping in mind that they enjoy having a lot of open swimming space. This being the case, you should keep the middle section of the tank largely free of decorations, concentrating them around the edges of the tank.

Line the bottom of your archer fish tank with about 2 inches of sand substrate and decorate with pieces of driftwood and smooth river rocks. You can also use live plants like Java fern and Anubias to decorate, but make sure to choose plants that can tolerate brackish water. When it comes to arranging your tank decorations, choose two large pieces of driftwood and position them on either end of the tank, set at an angle so they protrude about 6 inches above the surface of the water. You can also choose to drape a plant over the end of each piece so the leaves hang down into the water.

Diet:

Wild archerfish feed mainly on insects, spiders, crustaceans and small fish. In captivity they greedily take all sorts of dried and frozen foods including good quality floating pellets.

Since Archerfish are primarily carnivores in the wild, they will prefer live invertebrates, small live insects, and small fish. They will take good quality large flakes, pellets, and freeze dried foods. They will also eat frozen foods such as brine shrimp and bloodworms.

These fish will only eat of the surface and will ignore anything that falls past it. It is sometimes hard to get them to feed when they want to actually hunt and do what they are made to do; jump and squirt to get their food. If this can be accomplished you will have a spectacular Archer fish. They can be trained to spit down foods in the aquarium. This can be done by sticking small pieces of moistened prawn to the aquarium glass. Start by sticking the food at the water line. After they learn to accept it and go for it, you can start raising the pieces slightly higher. At first they will most likely jump, but eventually they will begin to spit to get their reward.

Diet Type: Carnivore
Flake Food: Yes
Tablet / Pellet: Yes
Live foods (fishes, shrimps, worms): Half of Diet
Meaty Food: Most of Diet
Feeding Frequency: Daily

Water:

Other freshwater archers do well in moderately soft to hard water conditions, and Toxotes blythii is probably similar. Does not need to be kept in brackish water. Temperature 25-28°C/77-82°F, pH 6.5-8.0.

Archer Fish become more territorial as they mature and are best kept in groups of three or more specimens that allows any aggression between individuals to be diffused throughout the group without any serious harm. In pairs it often happens that the dominant specimen bullies the smaller one to death. Single fish can be maintained successfully, but they are sometimes a bit shy and nervous, though much will depend on their tankmates.

Keep away from boisterous, nippy or aggressive tankmates, as well as anything small enough to swallow (archers can eat prey up to about half their size).

Possible tankmates would include things like Australian rainbowfish, Clown loaches, loricariid catfish, spiny eels, and peaceful South American cichlids such as eartheaters and Festivums.

Compatible with: