yikai

personally never see before. our hawaii shipments from lfs are not from the hawaii islands only, but also from a mixture of surrounding islands including marshall islands etc. rhomboid wrasses are only found in marshall islands and no where else in the world. yet they come in as "hawaii shipment" from our LFS. this proves that our "hawaii shipments" are not from hawaii islands only, but a mixture of other islands too. so our flame angels, come from surrounding islands too i've never seen the TRUE blood red hawaii flame angels before in singapore. I don't know if they come in before as flame angels are rare in the actual hawaiin islands but common in the surrounding islands. don't want to off topic too much. but here's a picture of a true hawaiin flame angel. blood red in colour. compare it with the normal flame with more orangey-yellow body colour.

excellent parameters. wah i dam gian to start sps after seeing urs

wah the bubble tip looks very nice and big now! glad it's in good hands. the sunflower zoas look dam nice lol. against the solid purple coraline algae. good growth of your pink birdnest. looks bigger and nicer compared to the first picture you posted.

i have 2 holding tubs at home. 1 with sg 1.010 (glass tank), and the other with sg 1.025 (smaller toyogo box). the golden angel was acclimated 45 mins from lfs water to my 2nd tub with 1.025 sg water. the water from lfs was sg 1.023. in that tub, there was only a big live rock and the colini angel. the golden was released into that tub straight away. did not hypo it. dunno how well it would take the hypo. only 1 of the colini died (the unhealthier one with the fin rot at the beginning. it stopped feeding long ago but never got thinner. in fact, it looked very fat. could be some internal problem) the other colini is still alive. and so is the other golden angel. confirm the first golden angel did not die of fluctuation of water parameters because it was never in any water with huge changes in salinity.

the first specimen to be captured and displayed in a tank? no. hiroyuki tanaka took a picture of a captive specimen before.

do you drive?

not aggressive. only aggressive if 2 males of the same species are added. if adding a male and a female, check for initial aggression first. usually will not fight. if fight, separate. in a large enough tank with plenty of hiding places, two un-paired ones can be kept together, with each staying in it's own territory

this is the normal gramma. look at the eye and fins, compare it with the above.

this is the royal gramma variant i'm talking about. notice the marks on the eyes are yellowish and the dorsal fin contains yellow lines on the purple side, and the an@l fin contains purple lines on the yellow side.

there is a variant of royal gramma with yellow eye markings instead of grey, and the dorsal fins have yellow line running along it. i first saw this variant last year in reef depot. lately have been seeing it more frequently in reborn and LCK. keep an eye out for that. they are nicer.

for more information regarding golden angels, described by randall and wass 1974, they are found throught indonesia and the great barrier reef. they live below the depths of 50m usually in large extensive network of porites or other corals. they are very rarely seen by divers due to their extreme shyness. because of this, almost all golden angels are caught using cyanide in indonesian waters. effects of cyanide may even start to show after 2-4 months. like i said, 6 months of living in your tank shud be considered as "ok". IMO. another thing to note. from all accounts or should i say, most accounts on internet and books, golden angels are not reef safe, or not as reef safe compared to flame or argi etc. with almost every specimen nipping on at least some kind of coral.

no need for liverocks in the sump. it is optional. filter wool is a good option to trap any detritus. but a filter sock is better. no need for bio rings. trap alot of dirt and will cause nitrates to rise

1 more reason for me to hate the US. lol just kidding.

the golden that died did not undergo hypo at all. it was acclimated from normal sea water to normal seawater. all my goldens had not experienced any fluctuations in water parameters. only the colinis did.

here is an extract from copps in RC re colini angelfish. "The key is getting them to adapt... and you are at the mercy of their collection and treatment before you receive them. As I say in my signature, there is no angel that is tough to keep... just those that are tough to adapt... and C. colini is the case. I've had my pair since '06. These originally came from Fiji. I originally had them as the sole pair of angels in a smaller system, but last year I added them to my large reef with many other Centropyge, including joculator and interruptus, and they do fine. This species is fascinating... I own many Centropyge and these are quite unique in behavior. With time they are not that shy, nothing like C. aurantia for instance... they show themselves often and travel together most of the day, never being that far apart from eachother. Their closest relative appears to be Centropyge narcosis. Many people claim they are shy and need passive tankmates, but they have proven resilient and tough amongst my fray of tankmates I have them with... again a very cool angel. The issue is that these guys are very widespread but not common anywhere. Believe it or not Pat Colin originally collected the species in joculator land in the Indian Ocean (Cocos-Keeling Islands). Pat Colin was also the first person to witness the newest species of angelfish... Centropyge abei. Colini are just delicate through capture and transport, so IF you could get them in good shape and feeding that is the biggest hurdle. To do this the best method is the same method I use when I receive all of my angels... get them in a separate system with no competition, just ambient light, and a calming environment with no stress. Hammer them with all foods... find SOMETHING they will eat in the short term, and worry about long term nutrition later on. Get calories of something in them, and feed often... I feed sometimes 10 times a day if I'm home to new fish... so that they could replenish body weight and be aided in recovery... a fat fish is a fish that could fight off disease. If you notice signs of anything developing you could offer treatment... another advantage of not using the "dump and hope approach" as I call it... getting a new fish and dumping him into your display with a bunch of adapted and territorial fish that allow food to last about 8 seconds in their aquarium... "

just find them during carribean shipments. LCK or reborn. if you want to try a pair, get a big one and a small one. if you want to try a harem, get a few small ones and 1 big one. for the harem, it's a hit and miss. some people try it but 1 by 1 die. best is to stick to a pair

yes of course their chances will improve in a mature set up. that's why i say they never fare well in QT and are all doomed to die. golden angels are extremely cryptic in the wild. they are fairly deep water and hide for most parts of the day. they live in extensive coral growths, like porites, and in order to catch them, divers have to either break apart massive amounts of coral to get to them, or use poison like potassium cyanide. giving them a lot of rock and dim lighting will greatly facilitate their acclimation to your tank. tank mates play a vital role in their survival also. golden angels are extremely shy, so if you have boisterous tank mates like damsels, tangs or other angels, you can forget about seeing your golden angel. they will hide most of the time.

i have always been fascinated with pairing marine fishes. they look and behave much better in pairs. especially when pairing angels or butterflies. most of them form monogamous pairs and they pair for life. they swim side by side and never venture far away from each other. that being said, it's not easy to pair most fishes as it's difficult or impossible to distinguish their sex based on physical appearance. keeping certain fishes like wrasses, anthias or gramma in a harem is also very rewarding. when i had my harem of rhomboid wrasses, it's very nice to see the male courting the females and flashing to get their attention. a harem of gramma can be quite nice i would assume, although i've never personally attempted before. But i might. can imagine a group of 5 hanging upside down a cave. so cute

royal grammas are hermaphrodites. all start lives as females, then morph to become a male. so smaller ones are usually females. to pair them, get 1 big 1 small.

in this case, your clowns acted as the dither fish. dither fishes will help encourage shyer species to venture out more. thanks but it's normal for golden angels to die. i just wished it would have survived longer

terryz, digiman, guess what i woke up to today? the golden from ahbeng is dead. coral farm 1 still looks ok and healthy. 1 of the colini is dead also. now i'm left with 1 colini still alive and 1 golden angel still alive. Colini log update - after 3+ weeks of trying them out, with 3 deaths, i will stop my attemps with centropyge colini until i have more ideal conditions to settle them in. at least with a tank that has been cycled, any problem i can dump in the sump and monitor from there. it's difficult to do that in a toyogo box. Golden log update - The first of the two golden angels died after 2 days. With no obvious reason. but we're talking about golden angels here.. they don't need a reason to die remember? i think dying unexpectedly with no reason is on their morning agenda. i'm left with 1, the much healthier coral farm 1. at this point my morale is so low, i really don't expect my remaining colini and golden to survive past this week. conclusion? these two fish really live up to their name of being super difficult. If you're reading this and thinking "LOL, surely can't be that hard lah. it's a dwarf angel afterall.." , well, think again. that was my mentality before starting this log, and now i can honestly tell you that they are really really not easy. to keep 1 alive is already worthy of an appluase. to keep a pair alive long term, my hats off to you. to sustain a breeding pair/harem? well i'll leave that to the gods. no more attemps on these fishes until i get my confidence back and when my tank is ready.

ha thanks!

everywhere. bulk will be from iwarna. they had a live rock shipment last week and i like because alot of the rocks are very big and nice looking. as for quality wise, not as good as coral farm but 10x cheaper. if i get CF rocks, i think i no need add fish and corals liao. can be a rock only with water tank for the next 6 months.

correction. i think i will be cursing and searing MORE while doing scape ahahahah!

only the true hawaii flame angels are blood red. flame angels are very rare in hawaii islands. the flame we get from hawaii shipments are not from hawaii, but from nearby island like marshall islands etc.