Family: Channidae
The largest snakehead, from Southeast Asia — juveniles are brilliantly striped. Enormous escape-proof tank, keep alone.
Channa micropeltes is a Channidae from Southeast Asia (Thailand, Malay Peninsula, Indonesia). In the wild it prefers clear streams, rivers and still waters; in the aquarium it stays highly aggressive giant predator — keep alone. Plan on 91–130 cm of adult fish at 25–28 °C. Related profiles: Channa argus, Channa asiatica, Channa aurantimaculata.
Wild records exceed 130 cm and 20 kg — the heavyweight of the snakehead family. Aquarium size is tank-limited to 70–90 cm, but 1300 L is only the floor. Keeping one is like housing a tame python; think through the space honestly before buying.
Native snakeheads like Channa argus are unrestricted, but the giant snakehead is an alien species. Under China's invasive-species regulations and various provincial rules, keeping, transporting or releasing alien channids carries legal risk — some provinces explicitly prohibit it. Check local regulations before buying, and never release one under any circumstances.
Aggression is hard-wired: anything smaller is prey, and anything its size gets shredded. Mixed tanks almost always end with a corpse. The only exception is an established adult pair (extremely hard to form) — practically every keeper's tank is a solo tank.
Highest jump rating. It launches explosively when startled or striking prey and can heave an unsecured lid. Weigh the lid down and seal every pipe gap. A landed toman survives out of water for a while on air-breathing — recover it quickly and it usually lives, a famously eerie channid trait.
Strictly carnivorous: whole fish, large shrimp, shelled prawns and quality carnivore pellets. They're the greediest, easiest-to-pellet-train snakeheads — hand-feed as juveniles to build the reflex, and adults rise like puppies to take food from the surface.
Juveniles grow explosively — 30–40 cm in a year given good conditions, approaching 60 cm by year two. That means fast metabolism and heavy waste: oversize the filtration and change water often; it's the classic faster-growth-faster-filter-wear fish.
A steady 25–28 °C. As a tropical channid, sustained temperatures below 22 °C cause refusal to feed and wasting. Heating is mandatory in northern winters. Cap at 30 °C — beyond that oxygen collapses, and oxygen shortage at this size is fatal.
Big water, strong filtration, subdued light. Adult setups are usually bare-bottom or large-gravel with driftwood — plants get bulldozed during patrols. It appreciates territory landmarks: fixed large wood or rock formations create a patrol route and reduce stress.
Remarkably well. It learns who feeds it, swims up begging at your approach, and with training tolerates being touched. That interactivity combined with sheer presence is exactly why the toman endures among advanced keepers.
A difference of scale: the toman is a 90–130 cm giant starting at 1300 L, while other popular channids run 15–40 cm in 300–600 L. The logic is identical (dim light, tight lid, solo housing, carnivore diet) — but filtration, water changes and jump-proofing all scale up several-fold.