Beautiful placed and tough reef tank fish,an aquarium must.

This little whiptail family member has to be one of the prettiest fish of a tough variety that is so harmless with only the exception of eating tiny shrimps and crabs and remains very colourful to full size in your aquarium.

Only some fish can be put with these pretty and harmless fish as they will most likely kill it or pick on it because it literally exudes, I am a food chain fish, start chewing on me.

They eat anything, live with anything harmoniously in relation to not hurting others in the aquarium; they swim around always showing lovely colour, rarely hide and look very pretty all their lives to the size of 8 inches and over ten years, what more could you ask for in an aquarium fish.

The whiptails (Pentapodus) is a big family and many are common in our waters, more so on the protected side of islands and close in reefs and if you open a sea urchin or cunjivoe,than you will see if there are any around you that were not seen originally.
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On a trip to moreton island back in the days when you could collect and spear on tank in Q a spearo put a hole in one of the 60 to 70 kilo cod there and had upset the balance of the large cod at the car bodies at bulwa on the northern end of moreton island on the protected side of it.
In our group there was a lot of concern as with others visiting the island about this in that the cod would not trust the scuba divers any more with their pilchards to entice them in close enough to pat them as it has been for quite a few years.
There were several arguments between myself and the very pretty marine biologist in our dive club about me catching some fish for my tank on the wrecks as do many commercial collectors anway.
This stoped when she wanted to preserve in a jar two of what I collected.
The cod situation changed very quickly as I said to most of our group they will come to fresh food, so when I caught two whiptails in front of them and snapped their backs in front of them you could here the disgust all around me until I showed no threat by laying on the sandy bottom only holding up my hand with a fresh whiptail in it and got the cod to come right over to me to get it and then the second whiptail I teased it a little to be able to give it a pat and it worked, the three other cod came in once the big one with the hole in its head trusted us and from there on it was all good.

I caught more and gave them to two divers that were still there and not repulsed by the snapping the whiptails and they got pics of patting the cod.

Whip tails are a very popular food for predators and most meat eaters in the ocean.
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These little fish will lead you on a merry chase if you want to catch one and though they are very pretty they are also quite good at hiding and are normally over looked if not looking care fully.

They can move at great speeds for their size in short bursts and will use any cover for hiding like sea grass, marine algae, coral rubble and any light stinging corals like soft ,fan and thistle corals so it needs to be remembered to look forward regularly as you go along or you will miss this little beauty.

These need to be approached from above when sighted or you will waste your time trying to catch them and give the fish a good laugh,if fish could do that,at your failure in capturing it.

This Pentapodus sp,as yet has no last name and some will say it is very similar to the nemurus,but it is still an sp,no last name,lets say its name is Pentapodus australis,being that it is in our waters mainly than out to Fiji, but are more common here.