Climbing Perch
South East Asian Climbing Perch
Climbing Perch (scientific name: Anabas testudineus) actually has the unique ability to travel on the ground and migrate from one puddle of water to another. This is important that serves as a survival trait for the fish because in their natural habitat in South East Asian countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar and Cambodia, the labyrinth fish needs to migrate to another waterway when there is long drought happening. They are found largely hiding among puddles of water in rice fields and they can even be found in muddy swampy areas.
Certain people upon seeing the manoeuvre activity describe it as “having walked the ground” but it is nothing close to that because they don’t actually have legs at all. How they travel is actually by squirming and wriggling through damp soil and using their strong fins to provide the forward push. Coupled with their ability to breath in normal air and their body scale arrangement to retain moist, this will make sure they have high chance of survival before they run completely dry before reaching the new waterway.
Handling the fish requires some caution because their gills are actually made up of a hard plate cover that can inflict a deep wound on your flesh. Caring for them is pretty much straightforward just like their other labyrinth cousins. They don’t require top-notch water quality but as long as nitrite, nitrate or ammonia level is not on the extreme situation, they will do just fine. This fish will eat just about anything that you feed to them. Having no preference, they will eat cooked rice, processed fish flakes, even life foods like for example worms, shrimps and just about anything that they can get into their mouths. One word of extreme caution though is that, this fish jumps. Nobody really understands why they do that and if they ever find an opportunity to escape, they will do so. So far after keeping them for years, I still can’t find a definite explanation as to why they do that but my advice is, just make sure that the aquarium hood is properly secured. Even if you go against the idea of covering the whole tank top, at least the minimum that you should have is allowing about 80% of the space covered leaving only a small room, thus making it difficult for them to escape.
I had actual experience before seeing one of my climbing perch jumping out and then traveled almost 6 meters away from my front porch and ended up at my backyard garden. The guy was lucky though as it did encounter cats or birds, or else the poor fellow would have ended up becoming a good meal. Finally if you are an avid fish keeper looking for something new, unique and interesting, my recommendation would be that you try out the climbing perch. I can guarantee, you wouldn’t want to miss seeing the walk on ground. Other labyrinth family worth keeping would be the Siamese Fighting Fish and Paradise Fish.
Certain people upon seeing the manoeuvre activity describe it as “having walked the ground” but it is nothing close to that because they don’t actually have legs at all. How they travel is actually by squirming and wriggling through damp soil and using their strong fins to provide the forward push. Coupled with their ability to breath in normal air and their body scale arrangement to retain moist, this will make sure they have high chance of survival before they run completely dry before reaching the new waterway.
Handling the fish requires some caution because their gills are actually made up of a hard plate cover that can inflict a deep wound on your flesh. Caring for them is pretty much straightforward just like their other labyrinth cousins. They don’t require top-notch water quality but as long as nitrite, nitrate or ammonia level is not on the extreme situation, they will do just fine. This fish will eat just about anything that you feed to them. Having no preference, they will eat cooked rice, processed fish flakes, even life foods like for example worms, shrimps and just about anything that they can get into their mouths. One word of extreme caution though is that, this fish jumps. Nobody really understands why they do that and if they ever find an opportunity to escape, they will do so. So far after keeping them for years, I still can’t find a definite explanation as to why they do that but my advice is, just make sure that the aquarium hood is properly secured. Even if you go against the idea of covering the whole tank top, at least the minimum that you should have is allowing about 80% of the space covered leaving only a small room, thus making it difficult for them to escape.
I had actual experience before seeing one of my climbing perch jumping out and then traveled almost 6 meters away from my front porch and ended up at my backyard garden. The guy was lucky though as it did encounter cats or birds, or else the poor fellow would have ended up becoming a good meal. Finally if you are an avid fish keeper looking for something new, unique and interesting, my recommendation would be that you try out the climbing perch. I can guarantee, you wouldn’t want to miss seeing the walk on ground. Other labyrinth family worth keeping would be the Siamese Fighting Fish and Paradise Fish.