The ‘Cleanest’ Flavocoronatus Butterflyfish Appears at SDC-ERI

The gold crown butterflyfish, Chaetodon flavocoronatus, is one of the rarest species of butterflyfish that we’ve been writing about since 2009, but had never seen for ourselves until last week. Closely related to the tinker’s butterflyfish from Hawaii, the declivis butterflyfish…

Garibaldi lemonpeel angelfish and Flavocoronatus butterflyfish hybrid headlining Father’s Day sale at Greenwich Aquaria

If a Garibaldi and a lemonpeel had a lovechild we imagine it would look a lot like the beautiful specimen at right. This stunning Centropyge flavissima was captured in the Marshall Islands and it features a strong orange body coloration…

Rare Butterflyfish Parade: Roa excelsa, Roaps flavocoronatus and a new Roaps tinkeri hybrid

Not sure what is in the air lately but have we got the goods on a nice handful of uber rare butterflyfish fish for you. Hot on the heels of the orange margin butterflyfish, Prognathodes basabei, we have an odd-phase…

Adding a New Fish to A Boisterous Saltwater Aquarium Display

We never thought we’d see that day that our YouTube channel would feature a how-to about adding a gold crown butterflyfish to a display tank that is already home to a large mature adult Tinker’s butterflyfish but here we are.…

Aqua Gift’s Yellow Chaetodon burgessi may have hybrid DNA

Japanese aquatic store Aqua Gift has received another yellow Burgess’ Butterflyfish, Chaetodon burgessi. Hailing from the subgenus Roaops, burgessi and its five closely related congeners inhabit deep drop-offs in the Indo-Pacific, are highly sought-after aquarium fish, and this particular yellow…

Tinker’s/Burgess butterflyfish hybrid is a perfect cross between the two 

A Chaetodon burgessi/tinkeri hybrid butterflyfish has been imported into the UK. It’s been ten whole years since we started to see these pop up in the trade but in that time very few if any have made it to England.…

3.2 Fairy Wrasses: The temminckii group

The temminckii group plays host to some of the genus’ larger and more unappealing species. Burley, pugnacious and often glazed in matte grey, these un-fairy looking fairy wrasses are more often than not associated with the ugly duckling sobriquet. Despite…

Reef Nuggets 2: Aquatic Lepidopterans for your reef (Revised edition)

In our previous episode of Reef Nuggets, we explored our options for peaceful and lesser known damselfish to add a little spark of colour and life to our aquariums. Having vanquished the hateful stereotype that not all damsels are malevolent and…

California Academy of Sciences dive team is scoring big in the depths of the Philippines

After what has been a lengthy period of preparation, scouting and diving, the California Academy of Sciences’ expedition to the Philippines is beginning to yield a nice catch of truly exotic deep reef fish. The first notable catch of the…

Keeping butterflyfish in reefs: What to look out for and what to avoid

Butterflyfish are the quintessential reef inhabitant. Take a look at any coral reef picture, video, documentary, poster, you name it. There’s a high chance a colourful butterfly is flitting around there somewhere. The same is not to be said in…