yikai

maybe this pic is better? there was a point in time where the colour faded quite abit due to bleaching. but it bounced right back! i've changed it's position now to somewhere shadier.

my most precious coral in my tank. an orange "true octo". orange true octo are super rareeeeeeeeeeeeee!! found it in a regular LPS shipment. there's only one piece. the colour is more amazing in real life. this is the first time i've taken a picture of it becoz i always can't capture it's amazing orange colour. anyway it's like orange hammer. some say brown, i say orange had it for many months and it's growing bigger.

dont we all love stags! my fav kind of SPS

My lime green and sunset millie. crazy polyp extension despite the butterflies nipping at the slime. did you know that most angels and butterflies cannot nip out the SPS polyps? they will try, maybe get a tentacle or two, but it's near impossible for them to extract the entire polyp. anyway polyp extension is not natural. in the wild, SPS stay retracted during the day.

ahh this is one of my favs! Halichoeres melasmapomus seldom seen in the trade, but this is a gorgeous beauty!

hybrid powder blue tangs are very common. that's a nice specimen. but the white spots look quite bad.

reborn's carribean shipments used to have... now cant find anymore. maybe u can ask M3MORPH

you tell me! i was shocked too! perhaps sold as miscellaneous wrasse from africa. even here in singapore i've bought the very rare undescribed kwazulu fairy wrasse at mccosker price. they always get mixed up because all flashers and juvenile fairies look very similar at first glance. only if you look closer and know the differences then they make a diff. but the honkies know their stuff. so to sell it at so cheap price.... is beyond me here's one in full display. from my friend in the states.

african endemic! v rare worldwide! i want one too! haha

at the end of every scientific name is the name of the person who described it. so in the case of C. larvatus, (curvier) described it with the date usually attached. anyway boring stuff haha. yah terryz birthday today hehe.

i wont say its impossible but the success rate is extremely low. Because of their strict SPS diet. larvatus is not the hardest. C. ornatus is even harder.

Cuvier is the name of the scientist that described this fish. the scientific name is just Chaetodon larvatus. Nice meeting you again today did not buy anything? haha

the C. roseafascia is not for sale anymore if i'm not wrong. but interested parties can make a pre-order for it. parties interested in the super rare L. klayi and G. dejongi can pm M3MORPH now. they're selling for >$3k for each i think. i also added common names for those who don't know the scientific names of the fishes above.

AM have mccosker flasher wrasse

no need to be a fish pro to like mitratus! i'm a noob at SPS but i like them alot haha. the mitratus has grown quite abit since i first obtained it! i hope to see your BTA peninsula too!

the anemone. crawled into a crevice that's hard to photograph. never mind in due time. you should set up an anemone corner. bubble tips do well together and they don't sting each other. just create a peninsula of BTA. that should be nice.

beautiful C. lyukyuensis. this one has a very yellow back!

over the months i've been slowly fulfilling my original idea of my new tank. that is, to envision a fully functional healthy reef with multitude of non-reef safe fish. the aim is to make this vision come true, to see potentially unfriendly reef fish in a reef set up. and also to set an example that some misconceptions can be de-mythified. i've changed my thread name to butterflyfish dominated reef. as essentially, that's what it is. the following butterflies and angels now reside in my tank. 1x semeion butterfly (Chaetodon semeion) 1x declivis butterfly (C. declivis) 1x mitratus butterfly (C. mitratus) 1x longnosed butterfly (F. flavissimus) 1x speculated "koran X emperor juv" (P. semicirculatus X P. imperator) 1x spawning pair of flame angels (C. loricula) it doesn't stop there. i started out with reef-safe butterflies like longnose, but slowly i'm getting more brazen by adding in completely un-reef safe butterflies like the semeion. it might work out wonderfully well, or bite me in the butt. but you know, in an SPS dominated tank, the damage done will always be minimal compared to LPS. i'm planning to add 2-3 more butterflies and that should max out my quota. and you bet your bottom dollar the new additions will not be reef safe! so far the semeion has been very well behaved anyway a FTS to start the new month of march. well technically 1 day early but who is counting! pardon the blurry washed out photos. the colouration of the corals and fish is MUCH better in real life. i just cannot capture the colours under these 12k bulbs... everything looks so blue and bleached. but this FTS is more of a progress report than a beauty shot. so it's ok that it's not the right colours.

there's a ~7 incher squammy for sale in pasar malam if you don't mind the size.

this aberrant tang is freakin gorgeous. i dislike the fish but i'm extremely drawn to it's colours! it's like a painting from pablo picasso. aberrations are very uncommon but sadly, the colours will change either to normal, or partially to normal. but the price is very steep.... it's 40 red notes in case anyone wants it.

im just contented with my paucifasciatus. what's the missing link? why have they gone unobtainable for the past few years? why are they only coming in in ones or twos? they're very common in the wild. these are some of the reasons that motivate me to get it even more! and it's the only member of the xanthurus complex to have a red patch and so isolated from all the others in the pacific ocean/indian ocean. it's from the red sea! so amazing. i like the story behind the fish. but you'll be surprised how much the price has risen over the years!

I'm so so so so happy i finally found a source for this fish. Chaetodon paucifasciatus. Which has been almost unobtainable in the past few years for some unknown reason! It's different from the others from indonesia with the orange back. this is a red sea and gulf of aden endemic. the ones with the black spot on the red area are juveniles. Holding my breath and hope they come in!

hotumatua cannot get now bah. opercularis even if have are you willing to pay? chrysogaster can get.

vlamingi is very common and does not have a blue tail i believe. that blue tail is so outrageous!