Prognathodes: more than meets the Aya

The following is a guest contribution from Joe Oliver, a resident Marine Biologist for the Curacao Sea Aquarium and Substation Curacao. The Banks Butterflyfish (Prognathodes aya) and its relative the French or Three-Banded Butterflyfish (Prognathodes guyanensis), are both striking deepwater butterflyfish that…

Awesome Fish Spotlight: Serranus chionaraia, the snow basslet ushers in some Christmas festivities

While it may be snowing in your country right around this time of the year, the snow basslet for sure didn’t get its name from the same frozen rain that many have come to love. Or hate, especially if you…

Top 10 new fish species of 2014

The last few years have been really hot ones for the discovery and description of new reef fish species and 2014 was no slouch either. Sometimes it seems like new species descriptions are dominated by dwarf gobies of the Eviota and Trimma genera,…

Awesome Fish Spotlight: Serranus luciopercanus, the Walleye Basslet

Today’s Awesome Fish Spotlight features another Curaçao gem from the genus Serranus. We love Serranus, and over the years we’ve covered articles on a wide range of species from this genus. The genus attains highest development in the Atlantic, especially…

Awesome Fish Spotlight: Antilligobius nikkiae, The Sabre Goby

We feature yet another deepwater Curaçao fish today, but this time it’s a goby from the monotypic genus Antilligobius. Antilligobius nikkiae is named after Dutch ‘Antillen’ referring to the region now known as Antilles or Caribbean Sea.; nikkiae: Named after Nicole Laura…

First Tusk Hermit crab goes on sale in the U.S. at Old Town Aquarium

Hermit crabs are rarely thought of as little more than the janitors for our reef and marine aquariums and blue leg and scarlet hermit crabs are purchased for cheap by the dozen to do our bidding. These species are colorful…

Awesome Fish Spotlight: Lipogramma trilineatum

Today’s Awesome Fish Spotlight features a tiny basslet from the Lipogramma genus. All Lipogramma are small basslets confined only to the deep water reefs of the new world, namely the Atlantic. There are eight described species of Lipogramma, with undeniably…

Will you stop hiding from me! Lonesome Liopropoma

Today’s post is c0-contributed by Mr. Tay, a friend of ReefBuilders and one of my best fish buddies in Singapore. Mr. Tay is known online by his alias “Digiman”, and has an extensive collection of deepwater and unusual fish, many…

Behind the face of LiveAquaria – Kevin Kohen’s fish collection part 3

We’ve come to the final installation of our three part mini series featuring the private fish collection of Kevin Kohen. This last post covers Kevin’s nano tank, so it won’t be a long post as there aren’t many fish in…

Behind the face of LiveAquaria – Kevin Kohen’s fish collection part 2

Here’s part two of our trip to LiveAquaria and a peek inside Kevin Kohen’s office and his fish collection. Incase you still do not know, Kevin Kohen is the man behind the company and as mentioned in part 1 of…