Another surgeonfish has been collected in the wild with the strange piebald coloration that seems to be pretty common in wild surgeonfish and now we’re really getting anxious to know what this condition is, or what causes it. The genus Ctenochaetus is…
Saltwater Fish
PNG’s Pictichromis aurifrons from Milne Bay show a gradient of color patterns
Dottybacks are some of the quintessential reef fish; they are small, hardy, come in a myriad of colors and they are both readily available and affordable to aquarists. The other feature of dottybacks is how amenable they have been to captive…
Stunning new species of Trimma dwarf gobies described from Papua New Guinea
There’s a fresh new crop of newly described species of Trimma dwarf gobies from Papua New Guinea and several of them are quite the lookers. The four new species described by Gerald Allen include Trimma abyssum, T. nauagium, T. chledophilum and T. multiclitellum. As you…
Half white ‘Panda’ bicolor angelfish collected by Walt Smith Fiji
A very curiously colored bicolor angelfish was recently revealed to have been found, a specimen with a complete lack of yellow coloration. On some reefs bicolor angelfish are so common that they may as well be part of the damselfish…
Steinhart’s trick to decompress fish showcased on PBS
You might recall the hyperbaric chamber designed by scientists at the California Academy of Sciences Steinhart Aquarium. A recent story done by KQED-TV, the local PBS station in San Francisco, showcases the engineering needed to bring fish to the surface…
Fisheye view of my saltwater fish only aquarium
Ask anyone in this hobby about me, and nearly all will tell you that I range from an insatiable coral junkie to a laid back coral connoisseur. One little known secret is that while I hardly keep any fish in my…
SciShow explains the different ways that fresh and saltwater fish get water
Aquarists spend a lot of effort trying to get the salinity levels in their marine aquariums just right. And if they don’t they really should since fish have evolved special mechanisms to regulate the content of water inside their body in…
Japanese fish shows up in crab pot off coast of Oregon
Crab fisherman off the coast of Oregon got a surprise when they brought up a crab pot and discovered a live striped knifejaw that is native to Japan, China and Korea. The fish is now with a team of scientists…
Midweek Misnomer: Plectranthias (Zalanthias) azumanus vs Plectranthias (Zalanthias) kelloggi
This week’s Midweek Misnomer addresses the confusion between two Plectranthias species. Again with Plectranthias. We’re just having a good jive with the genus recently and the past three fish posts from me have been about this. The misidentification of various…
A Hawkfish Even “Caribbean Chris” Could Love
Regular Saltwater Smarts visitors know that “Caribbean Chris” has an irrational (bordering on pathological) hatred of all marine life not connected in some way to the Caribbean Sea or tropical western Atlantic. By logical extension, most of the hawkfishes, being…