milkfish Chanos chanos, a fish of the order Clupeiformes (which also includes the herring family), found over a wide range in the Indo-Pacific, from E. Africa to the Red Sea, eastward to Japan and the Pacific coast of the USA, and down to the tropical waters of Australia. It is most prominent as a food fish in the Philippines and Indonesia, where large supplies for the markets are assured by catching fry at sea and then rearing them in fish-ponds, where they feed easily on a kind of sea moss and grow rapidly. They are silvery fish with greenish-grey backs; maximum length 180 cm (71"), market length usually under 100 cm (40").
