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Batfish
Note: There is an excellent FAQ on these fishes by Bob Fenner at Wet Web Media.
Although rarely thought of as brackish water fish, the natural habitat of juvenile batfish includes mangrove swamps. Their strange shape and mottled brown colours allow them to blend in with drifting vegetation in the rivers, camouflaging the little fish as dead leaves. When they grow up they move into more marine habitats, being common on reefs but also around harbours and other shallow water habitats. Kept in big aquaria with other large fish and they are completely peaceful and easy to tame, even friendly towards their owners.
Three species are commonly imported. All are rather similar as adults, basically round and silvery brown. They are most easily identified when the fish are young. All three batfishes are notable for getting big irrespective of the size of the aquarium, unlike many marine fish which tend to be smaller in captivity than in the wild. For this reason, do not buy a small fish hoping it will grow to the tank -- it won’t! Plan on a 350 litre (100 gallon) aquarium, at least, if you intend to keep these fish in a community setting with suitably robust species likes Colombian sharks, scats, and monos. Some specimens can be quite boisterous though, particularly at feeding time, so they shouldn’t be kept with timid fish. It is also important to remember that all are predatory, and will eat any small fishes or invertebrates that they can swallow, so they cannot be kept with small livebearers, gobies, etc. On the other hand, the long fins can be a terrible temptation for fish apt to nibble at such things, so it is not a good idea to keep them with pufferfish. Read the section on adapting marine fish to brackish water to find out how to adapt batfish to a brackish water aquarium.
Platax teira
Platax teira is known as the long finned batfish. Juveniles look very much like freshwater angelfish, but are rather darker. The dorsal and anal fins are very long, and the pectoral fins are elongate as well. In colour they are a rather murky brown. Reaches around 70 cm (30 inches) in length when fully grown.
Platax orbicularis
Platax orbicularis is known as the round batfish batfish and although it resembles the long finned batfish when mature. The names comes from the juveniles, which are much more rounded and leaf-like, and often a lighter brown in colour. A bit smaller than Platax teira when mature, up to 50 cm (20 inches) long, but still a jumbo fish for correspondingly big aquaria.
Platax pinnatus
Perhaps the prettiest batfish, Platax pinnatus is known as the dusky, red-striped, or red rimmed batfish. The juveniles are similar in shape to the long finned batfish, but are much darker brown, almost black. The fins have a red or orange edges, and the face has some markings as well. Adults are not very different to the other species, and the red markings are lost. At 45 cm (18 inches) it is the smallest of the commonly traded batfish species, but still requires a very large aquarium. It is is said to be the most predatory of the batfishes, and even when small stealthily creeps up on small prey items, while the other species are less predatory and will adapt to dead foods more easily. Although an attractive fish, this species also has a reputation for being by far the most delicate of the commonly traded batfish species. It should not be kept except perhaps by experienced aquarists, and certainly not in the typical brackish water aquarium.