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Captive bred flame angelfish are so real they’re already being flaunted for sale at the Backer trade show in Chicago of all places. Who would have thought that we would see evidence for successfully raised pygmy angelfishes not once, but twice in one week – first it was the captive bred Caribbean pygmy angelfish from RCT Hawaii and now these flame angelfish which are reportedly “made in Los Angeles”.

Based on the documentation by the Oceanic Institute we can gather that the small captive bred flame angelfish in the video are probably about 150 days old, give or take a month.

The new captive bred Centropyge loricula number about a dozen individuals, all between one inch to one and a half inches long (2.5-4cm), all swimming happily in a 24 gallon NanoCube. At their size the captive bred flame angelfish are just starting to deepen their red color and to develop their black bars. This is not the first time the flame angelfish has been successfully bred in captivity, the Oceanic Institute in Hawaii did it way back in 2002, but this is the first time we’re seeing them commercially available on any kind of scale.

The initial production of the captive bred flame angelfish is expected to top out at about 150 fish per month and for now the supply will be handled exclusively by Aquanautics. Captive bred flame angelfish shouldn’t cost that much more than their wild counterparts, retailing for a mimimum of $60 each and probably closer to $80 – it may be a slight premium but this is probably the only way you’ll ever get a flame angelfish this small. Thankfully we’ll be in Southern California for ReefAPalooza next week and we’ll see what more we can find out about the captive bred flame angelfish.