There’s not a lot of options for schooling fish in a reef tank but besides cardinalfish and anthias, the Assessors make arguably one of the best choice for small colorful open water swimmers. We’ve already lavished heaps of praise for Randall’s assessor which ORA was the first to breed in captivity, and the first to breed all three species of Assessors.
If you’ve any experience with ORA’s yellow assessor, then you know this group of fish is worth keeping in a reef tank at least once in your life. The modest little juvenile captive bred assessors like the one pictured above grow into colorful and elegant little fishes that are easy to keep, and if you have some caves or overhangs they may even find a chill spot to swim upside down.
Most of the pictures of Randall’s assessor are taken with a flash, the directional lighting is somewhat required to reveal the red spots and markings. Even so, a blend of yellow and Randall’s assessor is the best way to get a nice school or lemon and blue-green basslets schooling in your reef aquarium.
If you’ve read our coverage of Assessor randalli in teh past, then you know that this is one of the rarest species in the group. So aside from undertaking your own expedition to the tropical locales of the northwest Pacific Ocean, ORA’s captive bred Randall’s assessor is the only way that us American aquarists can get our hands on this precious little reef fish. [ORA]
