Silver Moony

The silver moony carries a strikingly deep, almost diamond-shaped body clad in mirror-bright silver, its fins edged in yellow and outlined in black. Juveniles wear two dark vertical bars, one crossing the eye and one just behind the gill cover, markings that fade as the fish matures. It belongs to the small family Monodactylidae, the moonyfishes, and reaches 27 cm. The species ranges widely across the Indo-West Pacific, from the Red Sea and the east coast of Africa out to Samoa and south to Australia. It gathers in large schools through bays, mangrove estuaries and tidal creeks, pushing well up into the lower reaches of freshwater streams, where it feeds on plankton and detritus. This tolerance of shifting salinity is its defining trait. Three demands govern aquarium care: a school of at least six, roughly 500 litres offering genuine height and open swimming room, and salinity raised gradually over the years, brackish for youngsters and near-marine for adults. That last point traps beginners, since a fish kept in fresh water indefinitely declines slowly. An omnivore, it takes flake, spirulina, brine shrimp and bloodworms. Breeding in captivity is exceptional.