Angel ID? - Centropyge - Coral Beauty or Yellowfin

[ReefWaters]

I purchased this fish a few months ago. I was told it was a Coral Beauty (Centropyge bispinosa) by the LFS and that looked right to me. After a little research, I found that this fish might actually be a Yellowfin Pygmy Angel (Centropyge flavipectoralis).

Here are some pics of my fish.

Here is the information from www.wetwebmedia.com on Centropyge. It describes flavipectoralis as

Centropyge flavipectoralis Randall & Klausewitz 1977, the Moonbeam or Yellowfin Pygmy Angel (2), is a good fish for medium aggressive fish-only set-ups. At first glance the Yellowfin is easily mistaken for a darkened Coral Beauty, with bright yellow pectoral fins. Sri Lanka and Maldives, Indian Ocean.

and shows this picture

This sounds like my fish alright. But www.fishbase.org describes Centropyge flavipectoralis as

Dark brown to black with hardly visible black vertical stripes on middle side and bluish spots. Pectoral fins golden brown; dorsal, caudal, and anal fins dark brown with bluish hue and blue margins

and shows these pictures

This does not look like my fish.
Fishbase shows this picture of Centropyge bispinosa (CB) which does look a lot like my fish.

You can see the rest of the Fishbase Coral Beauty pictures

HERE.

As you can see, the above picture, is the only picture of bispinosa that has yellow pectoral fins. The rest have purple pectoral fins.


So Im confused as to which fish I really have. Does anyone have any insight into this delima?

 

[DJ88©]

I removed the duplicate post and will move this to where you will get more attention.

 

[ACBlinky]

ReefWaters and I have been talking about this; I've got a similar looking fish and would also like to find out if these are CBs or another species. Here are a few shots of my fish, sorry for the dreadful quality. The first two were taken with just tank lighting, the third was taken with the flash on so his colours came out a little different. To my eye he's predomenantly purple, with just a hint of orange, and his pectoral fins are a very bright yellow.

I posted about this on nano-reef.com a few days ago, and got some good feedback. One member said that CB colouration changes dramatically depending on region and it's usually fish from the Marshall Islands area with this darkened body/bright fins, whereas those from Indonesia tend to have much more orange. That said, we'd still love to hear from as many people as possible just to be sure

 

[LargeAngels]

Reefwaters: You have a color variety of a coral beauty, not a yellow fin. They actually come in many varieties of colors. Michael Scotts angelfish book shows quite a few of them. Nice fish.

 

[Amphiprion]

I agree with LargeAngels. C. bispinosa can be quite variable (not to mention, tricky, in its appearance (it can even look like C. aurantia, in some cases). C. flavipectoralis is black to brown in appearance, not a purple or bluish color like C. bispinosa.

 

[ReefWaters]

Thanks for the comments LargeAngels and Amphiprion. I agree with both of you.

I was only a little hesitant b/c of the WetWebMedia description saying that flavipectorails is often mistaken for a dark Coral Beauty. Looking at the pictures or flavipectoralis makes you wonder who mistook the two fish though.

Would you say that the yellow pectoral fins are common on C. bispinosa?

 

[Amphiprion]

To further complicate things--yes.

 

[Rondelet]

Mine has yellow pectoral fins. I would agree that it is fairly common.

 

[akrimmel]

hey reefwaters you bring up a good question- i have a fish identical to yours and now wondering to what it is. i had this fish for about 6-8 months and is a avid eater but has not grown any that i can see as opposed to every other fish i have has grown. so my colors are exactly the same- might have a little more yellow across the abdomin but by now if it was a CB the colors should have strecthed out and be more prominent than what they are, unless i have a dwarf CB. whatta ya think?

 

[ReefWaters]

I think everyone here is correct. I think these dark purple morphs, with little orange on the sides and yellow pectoral fins are Coral Beauties. The few pictures of the yellowfin I have seen are much closer to a brown or even black color and the shape is even a little different the the CB. There are a ton of pictures of CB color morphs on the web and many of them are similar to what I have. I dont know where WetWeb got their information about people confusing the two fish but I think it is a little erroneous.

I would have to see a picture of your fish to really form an opinion but it sounds to me like you have a CB too. Let us know if you find out anything else one way or the other.

 

[Kaykay55]

very cool

 

[VengefulSakhmet]

That looks like a coral beauty. They really do come in surprising range of colors. The oddest I've seen was dark purple with peach tones coming in from the belly, almost a fleshy tone.

My favorite coral beauty has the deep blues, yellow in the middle, and a flash of hot pinky orange on the belly. Yours reminds me of that one, but with a less vivid strike of yellow. He really in gorgeous though. Very crisp and not muddy at all.

 

[DrBegalke]

I think it's a CB as well. Nice looking fish!