Driftwood Catfish

Driftwood catfish are auchenipterids: nocturnal wood-dwellers that spend daylight jammed inside a hollow log. Five species here — true jaguar (Liosomadoras oncinus), spotted jaguar, shoe head, dolphin catfish, and the emerald green cory — each in Quarantined, Lightly Medicated and Non-Quarantined listings.

Buy one for the fish, not the display. Give it a real hollow piece of wood or you have paid for something you will see twice a year, and feed after lights-out. They also hunt at night, so nothing small enough to swallow. The emerald green cory (Brochis splendens) is the outlier in this group — a daytime schooling fish, cheap and hardy, and the one to start with if the rest sound like more tank than you want.