Coral Beauty FOTM Oct '07

Coral Beauty
(Centropyge bispinosus)


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One of the best fish ever to add to a reef tank. Hard to beat for hardiness, compatibilty, temperment, and "cost." (Not to mention color, color, color) Has other wonderful attributes as stated below. Continuously moving in and about rocks, crevises at high speed. (occasionally taking a break by chasing a damsel or two). Has never bothered a coral and is a great algae grazer, spending much time licking accumulated algae from glass. Mine periodically goes "nuts" swimming back and forth at a high rate of speed on its side, fins fully extended and showing off very bright color for about 15 minutes. No idea what sets it off, but I see it a couple of times a week. (maybe trying to chase away reflection in glass? :-/ )

Note: Very hard fish to get photo of, as it never slows down for a good shot.



Fact file: Coral beauty

Scientific name: Centropyge bispinosus

Pronounced: Sen-tro-pie-gee
by-spine-oh-sus

Origin: Widespread Indo Pacific distribution extending from East Africa to Lord Howe Island and Micronesia.
Stocking: Best kept individually, since it can be territorial with its own kind, and similar species. On the reef, the Coral beauty sometimes occur in large, single-species groups.

Temper: Semi-agressive. Only keep one of this fish. Requires an established aquarium.

Adult size: 4 in

Feeding: Omnivore

Aquarium: Safe to keep with invertebrates and grows to a manageable size, so it's suitable for relatively small aquaria.
Diet: Most dwarf angels are algal grazers, but also eat small non-sessile invertebrates, like brineshrimp and mysis. They usually adapt well to frozen and even dried foods, but benefit from the addition of some vegetable material like Nori, or other macroalgae, in their diet.

Breeding: This species hasn't yet been bred successfully in captivity. The fry are pelagic and difficult to feed and few reefkeepers keep the fish in pairs. Like many other marine fishes, it's probable that this species is a protogynous hermaphrodite. If you've got a very large tank and can get hold of very small specimens you could try getting them to pair off naturally. Add them both at the same time, otherwise the additional fish is likely to be attacked. It would be unwise to try this in a small tank, or with larger specimens.

Notes: The Coral beauty is fairly simple to keep, but can be sensitive to pollution and will quickly succumb to disease if conditions aren't right. In common with many widespread Indo Pacific species, there are a couple of slightly different colour forms, which may represent geographic races, or maybe even distinct species.

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Guardian Angel?​

When adding my sixline to tank a few months ago (Mar 2007), my pack of damsels (2 black striped Humbug Dyclus, 2 blue yellow tail) immediately pounced upon it and began chasing it about tank. Whereupon my Coral Beauty, stepped in and fended them off the poor sixline. It would circle the new fish then chase off any of the damsels trying to approach it. The Coral Beauty did this for day or so until the damsels tired of their game.

Exactly the same scenario happened again when I added my Flame Wrasse (Apr 2007). The Coral Beauty defended it till the damsels gave up.

I did not tell anyone about this observation, thinking others would think I'm crazier then I already am.

But this is God's truth...saw with my own eyes!

But recent poster here, reported same event in his tank. ("sssnake") (Guardian Angel?)

Got me wondering is this a characteristic of other Angels?...Could this be the reason someone named them "angels" in the first place way back when?

I wonder what the innate instinct a fish could have for defending another species?

Weird.

Scott

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References:

Fishlore.com

Liveaquaria.com

About.com

Family Aquarium - Coral Beauty

More Pics

(Hardest fish in tank to get good pic of, besides sixline, as never, never stays still for even a moment :-/)​

 

thats normal behavior.watch it for eating green corals,especialy green brains.

 

Only "green" coral I have in may tank is frogspawn. CB has never shown any interest in it. --- would'nt much care anyway, am at point where I have to prune it back as it is getting so prolific.

Started out with one two headed stump...now have about 6 big ones with 4/5 "heads" each. (I just break them up to prune, or move about tank.)

 

Coral Beauty Angelfish
(Centropyge bispinosus)
Fiji/Tonga was $26.99
NOW $19.99
Save $7.00



this is from Liveaquaria.com

 

A great price, for a great fish!