yikai

it grew on me. lol. no lah not say don't like. not one of my favourites but the small ones kinda cute. i buy this to add diversity to my tank. so fake if it's all wrasses and other fish. i like how it weave in and out of the rocks. so natural.

and my super lucky find today. manage to find some time from my super hectic schedule. 3X Ultra neon green Sinularia brassica. Also known as the cabbage leather coral. First time seeing neon green ones. they are always brown! So neon green that i cannot even capture the colours. the reflectiveness just bounces off the camera and make it look so blur and... neon! it looks blue-green here but in real life, it's more towards lime green.

another cute little under appreciated chromis. Chromis retrofasciata. This one actually has a rather similar resemblance to a dwarf angel. in terms of swimming style and body shape. it prefers to weave in and out of rocks and SPS, flickering it's ventral fins as it pauses. A tiny little baby one. Chromises look really good in an SPS tank. i love their methodical hovering swimming style.

the king angel is really really big... some are even bigger than 1ft... you will need a super big tank for them.

Garibaldi damsel at LCK are 4-7 inches long and 3-4 inches high! Big and looks like a luo han

i've always liked angel sharks. very beautiful creatures.

rhomboid is very special. it's the most beautiful when stressed. look at this one being held up. IT'S EMITTING IT'S FLASHING COLOUR!! no other fairy wrasse will show "nuptial colours" when stressed. nuptial rhomboid will have purple tail, yellow body and a purple band in the middle. below is a real flashing rhomboid. see the colour! identical omg.

the one i show is alpha male la haha. the tail super long liao. but majority of rhomboids look like the one you posted. this is the same rhomboid as the one i posted in the net. look at how much different it has become once settled down? its a very gorgeous alpha male but the colour is just so bleh.

peacock eye, sunflower etc are just fancy names given to the zoas by hobbyists. much like cultivars. u know like grapes? Vitis vinifera var. red globe, or var. thomson's seedless as with zoanthids. zoanthus sp. var sunflower. zoanthids are under the palythoa family and also have palytoxin. but it's quite over-rated lah and unless you eat the zoas or have a big cut and drip copious amounts of zoa juice into the wound, you will be fine. just wear gloves and don't touch them if you have cuts.

look at these rhomboids. some of the best i've ever seen. the tail is very long and beautiful and the colour is wow. but this is stress colour so cannot trust. this size is also super difficult. 8/10 will die from decompression or swim bladder problems.

rhomboids don't look nice unless they are very very big. even then, the colour of rhomboid is not much to wow about. it's generally a pale fish unless kept in a deep water setting. lineatus will just grow obese and turn black. hooded is the nicest out of the three. there's nothing to complain about. it's the perfect fairy. i like all three but lineatus has always been my least favourite. look at all these obese and black lineatus! omg.

rhomboid, lineatus and hooded have been dethroned liao. marjorie, pintail and johnsoni has taken over. all three are sporadically appearing in the trade, just like how lineatus, rhomboid and hooded used to do when they first appeared. soon all three will be heavily collected and maybe one day, they will become as common as the former musketeers. johnsoni will replace rhomboid, since both found in the marshalls. marjorie will replace hooded, both are found in close to each other. Fiji has no hooded but still, location wise, very similar. pintail will replace lineatus although not same range. out of the three, marjorie is the cheapest and most common and readily available.

Lineatus, rhomboid and batyphilus are so common now. I don't even bat an eyelid at them anymore. LCK can bring in 50+ lineatus and so many rhomboids and 20 hooded. but yet still have people rushing over them like crazy. common but still very popular.

Here-forth is a list of fairy wrasses that are available in other parts of the world but not available in Singapore. Some of them have came in before but very sporadically and no-where near common. These are rare locally but can be obtained from other countries or sources. (IF you have your connections and can pull some strings, all of these wrasses are obtainable). I label these wrasses as being the "obtainable of the unobtainables". A twilight zone between the obtainables and totally unobtainables. Cirrhilabrus aurantidorsalis (Orange-back fairy wrasse) - Very cheap fish and abundant in Sumatra. Occasionally seen in other countries overseas but never comes to Singapore. Brought in once by Harlequin marine many years ago. Local status - Unavailable. Price - High tens, below hundred. Cirrhilabrus cf. morrisoni (Balinese fairy wrasse) - NEW SPECIES, UNDESCRIBED. Very rare in all parts of the world. A few have shown up here and there but mainly in Japan. Found in Bali but never appear in Singapore before. Local status - Unavailable. Price - Unknown. Cirrhilabrus earlei (Earl's fairy wrasse) - Very rare in all parts of the world. Never appear in Singapore. Collected only from Palau. The only place that offers the Earl's fairy wrasse is Bluehabour of Osaka, Japan. Obtainable locally? Impossible. Obtainable by export and connections via Japan? Yes. Local status - Unavailable. Price - $1k +- / fish. Cirrhilabrus johnsoni (Johnson's fairy wrasse) - Once used to be unobtainable, it's being collected again so the world is seeing the Kwajalein atoll endemic once again. Appear in Singapore only once but it has been sold . Collected only by Brian Greene in Kwajalein, Marshalls. Japan and U.S getting alot of them lately. Local status - Debut appearance one time. Price - Locally, 1k for a pair. Overseas variable but in the range of few hundreds forone. Cirrhilabrus lunatus (Crescent tail fairy wrasse) - Very rare in all parts of the world. Only seen in Japan and collected there. Obtainable if you import from Japan. Local status - Forget it. Unavailable. Price - Few hundred dollars. Low-range. Cirrhilabrus cf. lanceolatus (Pintail fairy wrasse) - NEW SPECIES, UNDESCRIBED. Super rare in all parts of the world, Japan and U.S being the only 2 countries with substantial importing power. Only a handful, not many. Obtainable if you request and ship from Japan. Local status - Obtainable with alot of patience and luck. Price - Few hundred, low range. Cirrhilabrus roseafascia (Rose-banded fairy wrasse) - Common in the U.S and Japan, very very rare in Singapore, only came in 3 times. Imported from Cebu in the states. Locally, none have been imported from Cebu. Obtainable if you wait. Local status - Obtainable so far only from Vanuatu and once from LCK's mixed shipment. Price - Few hundred, low range. Cirrhilabrus sp. 1 Nahackyi's fairy wrasse) - NEW SPECIES, UNDESCRIBED. Very rare in all parts of the world, U.S and Japan have seen a handful. None have arrived in Singapore. Local status - May appear from LCK's mixed shipment. Price - unknown. Cirrhilabrus tonozukai (Tono's fairy wrasse) - Very rare in all parts of the world. Used to be very common in Japan and U.S but lately have become very rare. Found in Indonesia and Malaysia. You would think that with them being so near, we can see them. Fat chance.Local status - Unobtainable as of now. Price - Cheap. Cirrhilabrus katherinae (Katherine's fairy wrasse) - Super rare in all parts of the world. Never appear in Singapore. Collected from Guam and rarely, Japan. A few American reefers and Japanese reefers have the Katherine's fairy wrasse, but lately they have not been appearing due to shortage of Guam shipments. Local status - Unavailable. Price - Unknown.

Cirrhilabrus johnsoni trio offered for sale in LADD for 1.3k USD. Price has dropped in the U.S since they first appeared at for LADD to offer 1.3k for three, that's good deal already. other LFS in US are selling at $200 USD/ johnson's fairy. so the price is steadily dropping. Once the U.S and Japan market becomes saturated, we can expect to see Johnson' fairy wrasse slowly trickling into the Singapore market (Hopefully).

water parameters look ok. Kh abit high. personally i would achieve 7-9 (personal preference). but i think they do well with kH at 11 also... not very sure. i'm quite nooby at SPS.

Tangs easiest. Require no feeding if they have plenty of Algae to graze on. Clip some nori before leave can liao

In school Juz now paiseh. Anyway depends on way fish u keeping. Ur wrasses all 1 feeding shud be enough but optimum will be 2. When u get back immediately feed. Then before ur lights off, feed 1 more time lor. I feed one time if I'm busy in the day. Weekend I feed 3 times. But I feed alot of small feedings whenever I'm free coz I have butterflies that tend to need more feedings.

hehehe

beautiful scape!!

nope. all gone. i ate all of it!

hmm..i smell something yummy!