Groupers

Panther Grouper: The Tankbuster “Poster Fish”

Every time I need to make a point about marine fish that are sold as small, cute juveniles but grow into real behemoths, the panther grouper (Cromileptes altivelis according to Fishbase/Chromileptes altivelis according to ITIS) is one of several species…

Awesome Fish Spotlight: Aurora, goddess of dawn and depth

Bridging the gap between our previous Osaka recount and the next is this feature on the one and only Liopropoma aurora. Previously in Dr. Shimokobe’s collection, we caught a glimpse of this species being housed in his deepwater set up.…

Opulent Osaka part 3: Dr. Shimokobe’s deluge of deepwater treasures

We’ve arrived at our third installation of our Osaka recount and if you’re still following, then thank you, and we hope you’ve enjoyed parts 1 and 2. We visited one of our favourite aquarist in Osaka, and we’ve featured his…

Liopropoma lunulatum offered in the pink of health for the first time by De Jong Marine

Liopropoma has been a much talked about genus here, especially in the last few months. With Liopropoma fasciatum claiming fish of the year and L. aberrans making a scene in Singapore, our obvious love for this genus is poorly concealed. We even have a pretty…

“Uncharted Waters” by The Association for Marine Exploration shows a deluge of incredible twilight zone reef species

The twilight zone is one of the least explored places anywhere in the ocean and human surveys are greatly limited by SCUBA diving. In this 16 minute long video by AME titled “Uncharted Waters”, a brief explanation is given on…

Reef Builders x Cairns Marine: A visit to the facility

If you’ve been following our recent posts and our Facebook updates judiciously, you’d know that we had the greatest pleasure of visiting Cairns Marine and their wonderful team just a few weeks back. Apart from touring the facility and seeing how…

Awesome Fish Spotlight: Lavish Liopropoma, the Golden Basslet

Our first Awesome Fish Spotlight for 2015 goes to the infallibly lavish Liopropoma aberrans, otherwise known as the Golden Basslet. L. aberrans is a cornea scorching fish with an incredibly vibrant combination of saturated yolk-yellow, bleeding into a rich tangerine toward the centre.…

Rainbow basslet video shows the full glory of Liopropoma fasciatum

A nice close up video is the culmination of finally getting a healthy and stunning example of a fish that up until a month ago was unknown in the hobby. We are speaking of course of the fabulous rainbow basslet from…

Descending devices allow fisherman to release deep sea fish unharmed

Principle tenets of being responsible aquarists and fisherman is to be good stewards of the resources that we’ve been endowed. For aquarists this means sourcing sustainably caught or captive bred fish, and for fisherman this means releasing fish that are…

Liopropoma fasciatum takes the title of 2014’s fish of the year

At the close of each year we religiously run through the stories of months past and gather up our favourites, condensing some of the best stories from various categories for a year in review. Although it is pretty standard to put…