Just over a month ago in November of last year I received another pair of Centropyge from my good friend and owner of Reef Culture Technologies (
www.rcthawaii.com) Frank Baensch out in Hawaii. The previous month in October I was in Hawaii for three weeks and met with Frank for three days when I was free and not working. One day was spent diving, one at the Bishop Museum with Rich Pyle, Jack Randall and John Earle going through their extensive angelfish collection among other things, and one just having beers and hanging out at his house just outside of Waikiki. I own many of Frank’s fish, and for those who haven’t read about them you could read
this thread. Everyone is always wondering the status of Frank’s operation after he announced a long needed break from breeding about a year ago. He’s been doing some dive traveling in the meantime along with work on his PhD. The good news is that Frank has gone from planning the planning of his new facility to actually planning the new facility! Please don’t ask when he’ll be ready… even he doesn’t know. But for us nuts like me it’s great to know he’ll be back… and he’s got some AMAZING things planned… let’s leave it at that for now…
Anyway, the male of the new pair is one of his captive raised Centropyge interrupta. This was by far the most popular fish bred by RCT. Of all of the fish I have from Frank, the only one I’ve lost is his broodstock male C. interrupta that fathered all of his captive raised specimens. This fish is one of the many profiled in the above linked thread. The fish died in 2007 and was at least eight years old, having first been spawned back in 2002. I knew when I got him that he was old, but I was happy to keep this historic fish for the remainder of its life in one of my systems. So, being without an interrupta, I was happy to get a hold of one of his sons now… Centropyge interrupta is a beautiful fish once thought to be endemic to Japan until an individual was collected in 1979 at Kure Atoll, the most Northwestern of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI). Since then breeding populations have been recorded from Kure, Midway, and Pearl and Hermes Reef of the NWHI. C. interrupta is the largest of all Centropyge attaining a length of about 6 inches and is also one of the most sexually dimorphic. Wild specimens enter the trade from Japan, but most all are large and tough to adapt to captivity for numerous reasons.
Anyway, here are some shots of junior… The first two are taken in a specimen container with flash, so the fish lacks a lot of the blue that appears when viewing the fish in person. I apologize for this, as all I have is a point and shoot camera. I am soon entering the digital SLR age in the next few weeks and will update the photos. The last image is in the display tank and is my best shot of the fish as it appears in person… just a stunning species!
Now for the kicker… can I get a drumroll? The female of the pair is Frank’s one and only captive raised Centropyge joculator! Seasoned angelfish nuts will have to reread this above sentence a few times… Let it sink in… Here’s the story. When Frank was in production a few years back, he was working with Centropyge debelius and Centropyge joculator simultaneously along with the other species. He found both of these Indian Ocean species very tough to raise. For obvious reasons Frank put his efforts more into the debelius as he was just one man with limited time and resources. He combined the remaining joc larvae with the debelius larvae, thinking that no jocs had survived. Well… after metamorphosis he saw what he thought was an oddly colored debelius. It took him a while to realize that one (yes just one!) Centropyge joculator had made it through! Frank held onto this special fish into adulthood. As he condensed systems while taking a break, the fish was put with other species… After a while she took to one of the interrupta angel and they began spawning! What a love story… Here’re pics of this historic fish!
This was not an intentioned pair and Frank never messed with the eggs, but when talking back in October I thought it was too cool… and I of course could not break them up. So, I took them from Frank and have given them a home in my 180 gallon sps display (shown in my avatar). They are the only dwarf angels in that aquarium at the moment… although there are a few other large angels of course. As with all of the fish I receive from Frank, I feel like I am cheating… there is no adaptation period… no nail biting… no QT… I drop them in and within hours they are just one of the gang…