Glass Headstander

About

The glass headstander (Charax gibbosus) is one of those fish that makes you do a double take when you spot it at a shop. The body is largely transparent, giving you a clear view of the internal structure beneath the scales, and like other headstanders it tends to rest and cruise at a downward angle that looks almost wrong until you get used to it. In the wild, this species comes from slow-moving or still waters in the Essequibo River basin of Guyana and the coastal drainages of Suriname, so it is well adapted to calmer conditions rather than fast current. As an omnivore it is not particularly fussy about food, which helps, but it does grow to a respectable size and benefits from a spacious setup with plenty of open water to move through. It is generally considered an intermediate-level fish, less because of demanding water chemistry and more because of its size requirements and the fact that it is not commonly kept, so there is less collective hobbyist experience to draw from. If you can track one down, it is a genuinely interesting conversation piece that rewards a patient keeper willing to do a little extra research.