Dactylopus dactylopus

Dactylopus dactylopus, commonly known as the Fingered dragonet, is one of the largest dragonets. From a distance they look very well camouflaged with a mottled brown appearance, which serves them very well on the sand-weed bottoms in nature. But coming closer you'll notice more colour and an interesting pattern of spots and stripes. The most characteristic features of this fish are their large fan shaped pelvic fins with a separated finger/leg-like first ray used to stand/walk on the bottom, and the two spectacular dorsal fins which they can use to flare to other fishes.

These fish can be kept alone or in a pair, but keep their adult size in consideration. Your tank needs to have a large population of zooplankton because these fish don't have the stomach to feed a large meal once or twice a day. They need to be able to feed on large zooplankton the entire day. This is why we advice to only add these fish to a mature aquarium with a self-sustaining population of zooplankton, or make sure you supply them zooplankton all day. It's adviced to add phytoplankton to the aquarium once a day to feed the zooplankton. This way there will be more zooplankton for the dragonets.