Chaetodon rainfordi

Chaetodon rainfordi, commonly known as Rainford's butterflyfish, is a small butterflyfish. Their base colour is white with brownish vertical stripes and a dark spot at the caudal fin base when juvenile. As adults most of the fish becomes bright yellow with on their body many vertical stripes in white, orange and some purplish areas (and in some fish the brown stripes remain quite long).

These fish are quite peaceful to most other fish, but might haress similar looking fish. These fish live in areas with little coral growth. In an aquarium they can best be kept alone unless a proven pair can be found. Although this is an absolutely stunning fish to watch, they're obligate corallivores and thus need to eat corals to survive and are notoriously hard to wean onto other food. This makes them not suitable for a fish-only tank and they can only be kept in a large tank with a lot of fast growing corals where considerable damage to the corals is accepted, but algae also need to be present. Feeding them a varied diet of live and frozen meaty foods as well as algae based pellets or flakes can help to minimize the damage to the corals if alternative food is accepted. A real specialist fish!