Red Sea reef fish beginning to trickle back into the aquarium trade
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Sunrise dottyback, Pseudochromis flavivertex. Photo Russo's Reef
Red Sea reef fish were the pinnacle of aquarium fish provenance when we started keeping a marine aquariums in the nineties. For a decade orchid dottybacks, red sea pearlscale butterflyfish, broomtail wrasses and bicinctus clownfish seemed like staple aquarium fish that would be around forever. Although orchid dottybacks have persisted in the hobby, nothing compares to wild caught Pseudochromis fridmani and the other fish mostly disappeared from the aquarium scene about five years ago.
During that time we could still get purple and sohal tangs and some golden butterflyfish here and there but the majority of reef fish from the Red Sea catalog were simply not to be had. During parts of last year we began to see sporadic imports of other Red Sea reef fish, showing up in Asia as routed through Singapore but now it appears American reef fish enthusiasts will once again be able to enjoy the piscine fruits of the Red Sea once more thanks to Russo’s Reef.
You’ve seen the eight-line flasher wrasses and other Red Sea fish make brief appearances on the Diver’s Den and other fine fish stores in the U.S. but customers of Russo’s Reef may be the first to be able to enjoy gems from the Red Sea imported directly to New York. Check out the small sampling of Red Sea reef fish that Russo has already succeeded in bringing in this year and we look forward to Joe pulling some strings to get even more exotic Red Sea fish. Cirrhilabrus blatteus anyone?
