2010 has been a great year for marine aquarium livestock, with many new corals and rare fish appearing in the marine and reef aquarium hobby. It was hard to make a decision, there was a lot to pick from this year, but we’ve narrowed down the marine ornamentals into the top ten marine aquarium animals of 2010.
The tenth place goes to…
The Xanthic potter’s angelfish, This truly stunning Centropyge potteri was collected by Dave Kelly at a dept of eighty feet in Hawaii. Originally it lacked all blue stripes but unfortunately this fish is slowly turning back to it normal colors as is often the case. It is still a beautiful fish none the less. Thanks michelle lemech for the pictures!
The ninth place goes to…
Liopropoma africanum, the Africanum basslet. Liopropoma africanum is an extremely rare basslet and seeing two specimens in one year with one of them showing up on our own soil in the House of Fins SPLASH (and a few others) is even more amazing.
The eight place goes to…
Sympodium! This beautiful soft coral started appearing in the beginning of this year and now is quite readily available. We always enjoy when a new easy to keep colorful coral enters the trade.
The seventh place goes to…
The Milka Stylo. This beautiful ORA purple stylo had been available in Europe for quite a while but it is an enlightment to finally see it in the United States. The coral features an absolutely amazing purple color and the nice fuzzy features of of all Stylophora. Picture by Janjay Joshi
Australomussa rowleyensis. Although this coral has been popping up periodically for the last couple of years, it wasn’t until an amazing shipment from Timor Indonesia that we realized its full potential. These specimens feature very unique shapes and amazing colors and we definitely would like to see some more of these shipments.
The fourth place goes to…
#4 Acropora spathulata. These corals have been lurking in the shipments for the past year but it wasn’t for a couple months ago that we realized that we were looking at a new species entering the trade. These Acropora share their unique coralites with A. millepora but the bases of the branches are much thicker and the coralites are more pronounced.
The third places goes to…
The Lightning maroon, this stunning unique maroon clownfish morb features very unique lightning patterns. As far as we know this is only the second specimen collected and is currently in the hand of a very avid fish breeder and a RB contributor Matt Pedersen. For more updates be sure to check out the fish’s website at http://www.lightning-maroon-clownfish.com/
an the second place goes to…
Anampses lennardi. A fish that is so HOT that it is sold within seconds on LiveAquaria certainly deserves a place in our top ten list. We first spotted this fish at the Dejong’s booth in InterZoo, and were extremely exited when a little over week ago nearly a dozen of these amazing fish appeared at Route 66 Marine. An Anampses lennardiwas sold within seconds on LiveAquaria and there is still a specimen for sale at World Wide Corals.
The first place goes to….
You probably guessed it all along, Gramma Dejongi. We’re just completely obsessed with this amazing fish and we’ve been trying to find all the possible details we can. Gramma Dejongi was first discovered last year in Cuba and has been officially described a couple months ago. The amazing rare fish unfortunately is not available in the US yet due to our trade embargo with Cuba. Tantalizing pictures and videos have just been fueling our desires, but for now all we can do is wait.
2011 is promising to be a great year for marine aquarists and we hope to see a lot more new corals, rare fish and captive bred fish.
