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Went to the aquatic market here in Jakarta yesterday for a look around. As usual there were a couple of fish I couldn't recognise. But one fish in particular caught my eye. I asked the guy what they were but he could only give me a local name which didn't help at all.

This fish was a couple of inches long (don't know if adult or juvie) with a compressed body, best way to describe it would be about the size and shape of a dwarf gourami without the feelers. It had a dark brown coloring with some lighter brown mottling. The most noticable thing was it had a bright red forehead, extending from the nose to the dorsal fin. And this was extremely bright red so bright I initially thought it was a SW fish. All in all a very intersting and striking looking fish. It may be an indigenous Indonesian fish.

I have a policy of never buying fish that I don't know all I need to know about, so I walked away. So if anyone has any ideas what it could be I love to know, so I can do some research.

BTW, while I was there I saw the biggest guppies I have everseen in my life.These were monster fish, heading for 3 inches and at least 3 times the size of any guppy I have ever seen). Can guppies get the big ? They were both (there were only 2) not very colorful, kind of a drab olive green - could they be wild caught ?

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

I don't know about the first fish you were talking about, but the "monster guppy" could be one of several species in the Poeciliidae family (guppies belong to this family too). Maybe it could be Alfaro cultratus, grows to about 3.5 inches.

HTH

Well figured out the first fish was a type of Scat (possibly a Red Scat), a very young one.

Definately not for me, brackish and grows enormous. Yet another reminder never to buy a fish unless you know exactly what you're getting into !

Still think the other one was a guppy that's been working out 5 days a week. That fish was buff

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.