Two Different Half Black Surgeonfish Collected an Ocean Apart

In the early days of freshwater ornamental fish breeding, one of the first mutations that consistently appeared in high profile species like angelfish and discus was a half black trait that originated at the tail. It seems like this mutation…

First Gem X Scopas Hybrid Tang Collected from Madagascar

The gem x scopas tang hybrid that RVS Fishworld just showed off may not be the first one the aquarium hobby has ever seen, but it is the first one from Madagascar. Much like the circled dragonet we featured a…

Can You Believe this Gem Tang Survived?

Several weeks ago we peered into one of our reef tanks to notice that something was not quite right with one of our gem tangs. The medium sized Zebrasoma gemmatum specimen had been in our care for the better part of…

Barcode Gem Tang Returns to Marine Collectors

Yellow tangs have piebalds, scopas tangs have koi variants, and now it seems that the highly desirable gem tang has its own variant called the Barcode gem tang. The barcode Gem tang is a special variant of the gem tang…

Unboxing the Motherlode of Rare and Exotic Fish [video]

For years we’ve wrote about, photographed and filmed some of the rarest tropical reef fish in the world, often by visiting the right marinelife dealers, reefs or private tanks. One of the biggest reasons for the Reef Builders Studio is…

These Four Rare Fish Make For An Incredible Madagascar Biotope Aquarium

The Indian Ocean is one of the least explored ecoregions of the world, and madagascar in particular is nearly a black hole of information when it comes to ornamental aquarium fish. Thankfully in recent years RVS Fishworld‘s sister operation in…

Lined Gem Tang Is Truly One Of A Kind!

We’ve written so many cool stories about tangs and surgeonfish over the years – there must be a hundred articles on rare species, koi tangs, aberrations and hybrids. It’s definitely getting to the point where there’s not much we haven’t…

Gem tang hybrid could be the rarest surgeonfish ever

If you thought a gem tang was rare, just wait until you get a good look at this very unique surgeonfish just captured in Mauritius. At first glance the little Zebrasoma looks like a scopas tang, Zebrasoma scopas, but upon further inspection this…

Tropical Marine Centre photo confirms a surge in gem tang supply

For the last several weeks now we’ve been hearing reports that there has been a spike in the availability of gem tangs. One international marine fish wholesaler after another have confirmed receiving ten or more Zebrasoma gemmatum, with the UK’s Tropical Marine…

Tricolor scopas tang video of a large captive specimen swimming calmly at Southwest Marines

The Tricolor tang we shared with you a couple of weeks back was cooperative for both the still and video cameras. It took a while for this large captive specimen living at Southwest Marines to relax with our camera in…