Chinese high-fin banded shark

The Chinese high-fin banded shark is a large freshwater fish in the family Catostomidae (suckers), native to the Yangtze River basin in China. Juveniles are dramatic, with a tall triangular dorsal fin and bold dark bands on a pale body, while adults become drab, elongated, and heavy-bodied, losing the high fin and banding. It is a peaceful, cool-water bottom-dweller that in nature migrates and grows very large. It is a schooling fish when young but is often sold as a small juvenile with little warning of its eventual size. It is genuinely unsuitable for most home aquariums, requiring very large, cool, well-oxygenated systems or ponds as it grows. It sifts the substrate for invertebrates, detritus, and plant matter, taking sinking prepared foods. The species is threatened in the wild, and its long-term care demands make it a fish for specialist keepers only.