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Striped Headstander
Anostomus anostomus
The Amazonian 'Striped Cigar'. A stunning, torpedo-shaped fish reaching 16 cm with high-contrast black and yellow stripes. A fascinating algae-scraper with a severely upturned mouth, but notoriously aggressive toward its own kind in captivity.
Class:Actinopteri
Order:Characiformes
Family:Anostomidae
Genus:Anostomus
Species:Anostomus anostomus
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Water Temperature
24 - 28 °C
pH Value
5.5 - 7.5
Water type
Freshwater
Adult size
16 cm
Minimum tank volume
>= 180 L
Minimum group
>= 1
GH
1 - 12 dGH
KH
1 - 6 dKH
TDS
25 - 240 ppm
Conductivity
39 - 375 uS/cm
Species description
Geographical Origin and Habitat: Widespread in the central Amazon and Orinoco (Brazil, Peru, Venezuela). Gathers among the dense vegetated banks of fast-flowing rivers, often in small schools among logs and rocky crevices in highly oxygenated waters.
Taxonomy and Morphology: Striped Headstander (Anostomus anostomus). The family name (Anostomidae) indicates the curiously upturned mouth. Tapered "torpedo" profile. Its most famous characteristic is its swimming and resting posture: inclined at 45 degrees with its head pointing towards the bottom.
Social Behavior: Extremely gregarious but establishes rigid hierarchies with continuous displays and "shoves". Becomes a serial fin nipper if kept alone or in insufficient numbers. Schools (minimum 6-8 specimens) disperse intra-specific aggressiveness.
Coloration and Sexual Dimorphism: Alternating pale/golden yellow and deep brown-black longitudinal stripes cover the entire body like a horizontal "barcode". Base of the fins mottled with intense rust red. Dimorphism almost non-existent (mature females slightly stockier).
Care, breeding and tankmates
Aquarium Setup: An aquarium (120 cm / 48 inches minimum for a school) hermetically closed: they are peerless jumpers. Strong currents. The use of rocks with cultivated green algae ("Aufwuchs") provided vertically will satisfy their instinct to graze upside down.
Diet and Feeding: Omnivore with a very strong plant requirement. In nature they eat thread-like and epiphytic algae tearing them violently, ingesting microfauna. Feed with spirulina wafers, zucchini, bloodworms and Brine shrimp. Will relentlessly devour soft-leaved aquarium plants.
Water Quality: Requires clear and highly oxygenated waters. Temperature fluctuations or too high nitrates make them subject to intestinal blockages and parasitosis. Weakly acidic or neutral PH.
Compatibility and Cohabitation: Perfect partners for rheophilic Loricariids (Plecos), large peaceful or semi-aggressive Cichlids (Severums, Geophagus) and large Characins. The golden rule: never pair them with slow fish or those with long flowing fins (Angelfish, Bettas) which would be amputated.
Aquarium Breeding: Very rare in captivity. Egg scatterers. In rare cases of fortuitous reproduction, they scatter the tiny eggs among the dense vegetation (mosses) completely abandoning any parental care. The eggs are greedy for oxygen.
Risks and Diseases: Zero tolerance for "tank dwarfism": if the tank is too short they will not develop the schooling aptitude and will go crazy with panic, darting against the glass. Very high risk of jumping from the lid.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Widespread in the central Amazon and Orinoco (Brazil, Peru, Venezuela). Gathers among the dense vegetated banks of fast-flowing rivers, often in small schools among logs and rocky crevices in highly oxygenated waters.
Origin
Cosmopolitan or introducedAmazon, Orinoco, and GuianasEast Asia
Fish profile
- Temperament
- No verified data available
- Diet
- No verified data available
- Life expectancy
- No verified data available
- Adult size
- 16 cm
- Sex ratio
- No verified data available
- Feeding frequency
- No verified data available
- Bioload
- Medium
- Flow
- No verified data available
- Jump risk
- No verified data available
- Reproduction
- No verified data available
- Compatibility & tankmates
- No verified data available
- Tank level
- No verified data available
The catalog's scalar value is 16 cm. The FishBase SPECIES table (v25.04 snapshot) source reports a maximum adult measurement of 16 cm for this species, recorded as total length (TL). The taxonomic record consulted is Anostomus anostomus (v25.04); male or unsexed record. These figures are not interchangeable: the first is the profile's editorial reference, whereas the second is a published maximum under a specific measurement convention; differences among sources can reflect sex, population, life stage and measuring method.
The single-adult profile is classified as medium bioload. The bioload-v2 rubric deterministically assigns this class from the verified maximum length of 16 cm; it is a catalog management category, not a direct measurement of waste output.
Window to the official scientific data of the species
Data synced on: 06/15/2026
Scientific Parameters & Models
- Trophic level
- 3 ± 0.34 se
- Resilience
- High (less than 15 months)
- Phylogenetic uniqueness (PD50)
- 0.5312
- Bayesian Length-Weight
- a = 0.00891, b = 3.05
VulnerabilityLow vulnerability (10 / 100)
Image gallery
Licensed images linked to the species or, when marked, to the closest representative taxon.
Related species
Recommendations grouped by close relatives, companion choices, and similar care.
