It’s been almost five years since Bali Aquarich first revealed one of their most popular captive breeding successes with their goldflake x flagfin angelfish hybrids. At the time we would occasionally see this specific cross from the Central Pacific but during that time we’ve come to recognize the aquacultured fish from Bali Aquarich as distinctive and unique.
A nice ‘pure’ goldflake angelfish has a varying degree of yellow spots on a light yellow to grey body, with solid black fins edged in blue. Sometimes wild specimens of Apolemichthys xanthopunctatus can appear quite dull with a grey body and few, scattered spots, perhaps due to influence from back crossings with another Central Pacific species, the Griffis’ angelfish of which hybrids occasionally are collected for the aquarium trade.
But the Bali Aquarium captive bred flagfin and goldflake hybrids display the best combination of colors from the parent species; a bright yellow base body color, smaller spots but with black edged dorsal and anal fins, and a slightly dusky tail. This particular hybrid, usually rare from wild collections, is now regularly available from Bali Aquarich and their retail partners around the world, making a strong case for supporting captive marine fish breeders around the world.
The goldflake, flagfin, and griffis’ angelfish make for some really fun natural and captive bred hybrids, now if only we could toss some bandit angelfish genetics into the mix, we might see even more remixing of fish colors from this interesting group of tropical angelfish.
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