Clown knife fish Profile, with care, maintenance requirements and breeding information for your tropical fish

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This page will give a completely detailed profile of the selected fish, from A to Z. The profiled fish will be chosen randomly by Badman, and will come from the complete genre of tropical fish. New profiles are added on a regular basis. If you would like to submit a profile for the site please contact me. Don't forget to let us know you experiences with this fish by filling out the

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photo courtesy of Aqualand pets plus

Chitala (Notopterus) chitala

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From: grembo
Date:6/17/2006

Mine is easily 2 ft long at about 3 yrs of age. Housed in a 150 gallon tank. Seems to be very peaceful although I haven't been able to introduce any other fish for any length of time. Anything that will fit in it's mouth will be tried. It recently killed my 6 inch bristlenose pleco. Doesn't seem to be interested in pellets. I feed about 4 goldfish per day although more will be eaten if introduced. Isn't shy at all. It even lets me pick it up when moving between tanks is needed. Eats nightcrawlers if given, although not as enthusiastically as live food. I've found info on the net stating that they grow to lengths of 6 ft, though that is probably in the wild. Is very friendly and gets very excited when I approach my feeder tank, even shivers in anticipation.

From: gemin8888
Date:3/6/2006

My clown knives are still housed in a 55 gallon tank after almost two years. They eat live goldfish, frozen blood worms, some flakes foods, and pellet foods as well. The two knives get two fish about every other day, the other days they get to feed on something other than live fish. Though I do highly suggest to quarantine your live feeder fish and monitor them for any disease or parasites before feeding them to your knives or other predatory fish. Only to ensure that you do not pass it on to the other fish. Water changes are definitely important to maintain ammonia and nitrate levels. I found that dither fish, such as giant danios are very very quick fish and the clown knives cannot keep up with them at all. Also large silver dollars or pacu can become tank mates. However I do stress the fact that these fish came grow to a length of possibly 4 feet!!! Mine are only 12 inches and are being put in their final home in the next few months, which is a 300 gallon tank. These fish will eat anything they can fit in their mouths, they use echolocation to track their prey. Mine come out all hours of the day and night, so despite what they say about them being nocturnal it doesn't seem to be totally true with mine. They have many hiding places and choose not to use them. These are very beautiful fish, can be territorial as they get larger, while they are still young they tend to hang around each other alot, but as they grow larger, they may get agressive towards one another, or one will dominate over the others.

From: J Shcneider
Date:6/26/2005

I purchased a pair of sub adult knives , they are about 12-14 inches in length and about 5-6 in height. Big fish!!! I am unaware of how to sex them but the two I bought were raised together so they really are if you can say it a mated pair, they will not leave each others side. Very peaceful. I house them in a 180 gallon tank with Silca sand substrate and round smooth rock boulders, also the tank is covered in duckweed and large amazon sword plants, the other fish include a 13 inch Lungfish, 12 inch marbled Pim catfish, 4 5 inch silver dollars, everyone gets long fine, the only troubles I had was when I have a common 10 inch pleco, he would attack everything in the tank and he was relentless about it. My meanest fish, the Pim Cat still has scars from the Pleco. All in all if you have a big tank get this fish, if not, then its really not fair to the fish at all as they do grow very large. As for diet, my clowns have been fed pellets from day one, and frozen shrimp, never have they had live food!!!! So do not listen to all the hype about having to feed live food, all my fish are on frozen or pellets, even ones that were raised on live goldfish.

From: Shannon
Date:6/13/2005

I have two clown knife fish, I have had them for almost a year now. In the beginning, they fed off of blood worms,adult brine shrimp, some pellet food as well. Once they they grew from 3-4 inches to about 6 inches, they refused it. So I switched to minnows, occasionally they will take large clumps of beef hearts. I do not have the typical knife fish, who are shy and only come out at night. Mine are always out and about even with the lights on. They have plenty of hiding spaces, but they choose to swim with the lights on or off. They are peaceful fish, not aggressive at all, but they will try to fit anything they can in their mouths to eat. I house mine with the fastest fish I could find, which is the Giant danios, they are about 4 inches long. I also have a pleco that they never bother with, and I have a female convict in the tank as well. They get along fine. As long as the fish they are in there with are very fast swimmers or they are large enough so they cannot eat them, they are fine. My knives have been growing about an inch or so each month, they eat about 4 to 5 minnows or one small goldfish every 2nd to 3rd day. I keep my feeders in a separate tank to make sure they stay disease free, so that I can keep the clown knife tank healthy as well. Getting feeders from a local fish store, you know they are probably going to be healthier than at a chain pet store. These are great fish if you have enough space to house a very large tank, since they grow so large. Watching the spots and stripes change on them as they grow, I have one that has alot of very defined spots, many spots, the other one has a normal spotting pattern, big black circles outlined in white, very pretty fish. They are not shy at all and go crazy when I come close to the tank, the only time they seem to shy away from me is when I do water changes, as if they are upset because I disrupted their swimming patterns. So I keep everything in it's place after I am done the water change.

From: Andrew Wallin
Date:6/7/2005

I just recently purchased a 3 inch baby clown knife from our fish store. I did a lot of research on the fish and it's behavior before purchasing. I have it in a 55 gallon planted tank with lots of Jungle Val plants(ph 7.2, 76-78 degrees no trace of nitrite/nitrate/ammonia). one interesting behavior that I have noticed is that when I put frozen brine shrimp in the tank he will go into a hunting/stalking mode and will swim tail up to mimic the blades of jungle Val. he then slowly drifts up to a piece of food hung up on a leaf or rock and inhales it. I think I'm lucky that he will even accept frozen food from what I have been reading. He hasn't bothered his other tank mates at all either. I keep him with several gold dust mollies (these will breed feeder fish eventually) and a 4 inch blue panaque. The clown knife will even nibble on the algae wafers that I put in for the pleco! having a planted tank with plenty of hiding places I believe aids in making the clown knife feel more comfortable. Also my fish is still a juvinelle (perhaps a month or two old) so it still has it's stripes. hope this info helps out

From: Nimish
Date:05/29/2003

A beautiful, graceful fish.. Grows very fast. As I have read some people having problem feeding it, I know a few who have starved it to death. Before this happens the best idea is to dig up a small 1 feet corner in your lawn and gather some earthworms.. It loves the food that fills its mouth :). the mouth is unsuspectingly bigger so even if starting from smaller specimens (4-6 inches) do not keep fish smaller then 1.5 inches with it. You wont even find a trace of the smaller fish. I have had very peaceful experience with it except for kribensis which tried to harrass the wrong fish, ended up as dinner.

From: Ventoni
Date:03/26/2002

I have 2 clown knifefish. The first one eats beef meat while the other eats blood worms... I'm having a hard time feeding the other one because I want to train him for eating beef meat.

From: August
Date:03/24/2002

I just purchased a 3 inch clown knife and am having a time trying to get him food. I have a 1 foot arowana in the tank with him, yet he doesn't seem to be scared of him. They don't even fight. But I am trying to feed him guppy's and frozen shrimp. The problem is all the other fish eat it first, he still seems a bit scary. Does anyone have any good advice on how to make sure he gets his share. I am going to try and feed him at night when the others are less active. But still in all, he is a blast to have and to watch swim. I highly recommend one for the home aquarium.

From: Shereen
Date:03/27/2002

I have successfully raised a oscar and knifefish together with a tire tread eel and large pleco. They are a happy peaceful family. The trick is to get them young and near in size with the oscar a bit smaller. But with my second knifefish family the eel did not grow as rapidly and when I left the lid open one day the eel got chased by the clown and committed suicide by jumping out of the tank.....and the clown chased him. So beware they can and will get out!

From: Paul
Date:03/27/2002

I started w knife fish almost 7 years ago now...they grow very large and they eat small goldfish...they can be trained to get the food from your hand....one time I dipped my finger in the water and it thought it was food so it bit it...but they are very timid and shy...they don't attack other fishes...right now I have 2 in a 50 gallon tank...I plan to add an arowana next...the baby arowana that I have is in a 20 g tank but I will buy a new one soon...the knife fish is very hardy...even after 2 days of setting up the aquarium(of course after all the chemicals have been put in)...they could live with that...they are not so sensitive...it just takes them a couple of minutes to adjust!!!

From: Vonda
Date:04/10/2002

This awesome species is also legally blind! 'Tis true, that is why they are nocturnal animals, they send electrical pulses in the water (don't worry this can't hurt you) the pulses bounce off other fish in the tank in return the clown knife can determine the size of the other fish and weather or not it sizable to eat as food. They prefer the dark and/or well planted aquariums, watch they come out at night to eat! Also these fish can grow well over 3 feet long. Awesome fish not for all tanks though!

From: piva
Date:04/11/2002

I have a 20 inch clown knife. He's 2 inches thick and 6 inches tall. He was 9 inches when I got him 18 months ago. He eats an average of 200 to 300 feeder comets a week. He has a 125 gallon tank to himself, so I hope to grow him to 3 feet in length. These large fish make aggressive lunges to the tank surface, so make sure to secure the lids, and be ready for loud splashes late at night.

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