Deepwater/Remotely Located Butterfly and Angelfish Thread

Hey Matt! All of the hotus that were coming in were from Easter at the time, and collection was cut off and made illegal so they are no longer offered. I was offered Frank Baensch's breeding pair a few years back but I did not have the sub 72 degree system for them...

What happened to the pssible collection this year?
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1737413&highlight=hotumatua

What you can't collect centropyge hotumatua anymore!:thumbdown Is there a chance of obtaining a permit to collect them? Oh can you also get a permit to collect resplendent angels or how do the japanese get them?


Thanks
 
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My Prognathdes basabei. Over a year in captivity and doing great.

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Also though not an angle or a butterfly i gotta add my deep water anthias.

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Hey Matt! All of the hotus that were coming in were from Easter at the time, and collection was cut off and made illegal so they are no longer offered. I was offered Frank Baensch's breeding pair a few years back but I did not have the sub 72 degree system for them...

The Chaetodon smithi that is on display at Waikiki did indeed come from Rapa, collected by a certain young collector who made enough greene from the sales to buy a Cis Lunar rebreather... while at the same time being a great guy and donating one to Waikiki :)

Matt, here is a shot of me and your coworker a few years back in Waikiki, conveniently with the smithi about to bite Charles' beard... :D

Charles_and_me_small.jpg


Oh, and on a side note you'll notice Centropyge hotumatua has a Western range all the way to Rapa... but this was based on just ONE specimen collected by Jack Randall back in the day... he was at Rapa for a full month with five divers (and a ton of rotenone ;)) and that was the only hotumatua collected... this species is only common at Easter and Pitcairn...

Copps

Thanks John!
 
What you can't collect centropyge hotumatua anymore!:thumbdown Is there a chance of obtaining a permit to collect them? Oh can you also get a permit to collect resplendent angels or how do the japanese get them?

When Peter Schmiedel and myself were on ASI we asked for a permit, but the answer was a polite but very clear no. Few things have changed on the Island since then, but not when it comes to collecting resplendens. A few single ones are showing up on the marked every year. They were surely collected illegally, either by someone who comes over by private boat (that was done before) or by someone from the USAF staff, flying them out on an military airplane. Couple of years back there was some smuggling of rock lobsters out of ASI via that route, so don't tell me that it isn't possible.
The only way civilians can get to ASI by plane is through a Royal Airforce Flight via Brice Norton (UK). They have quite some security on that airport so I doubt that you can smuggle fishes via that route.
Unless someone will convince the governor of ASI AND the environmental protection guys (may be an even bigger obstacle), you can either dream of a resplendens or support illegal collection (not counting the few TB ones from Frank Baensch).

Jens
 
Hi

While I was diving on Easter Island, I saw plenty of Chaetodon litus (actually a pretty ugly fish...) but absolutely NO C. smithi. Considering the odd coloration of the smithi I am sure I would have noticed if there were any. The C. litus is very abundant and not shy at all. What is also pretty funky around Easter Island is the fact that there are plenty of completely black Forcipigers.

Hey Jens! C. smithi are so rare at Easter that the recorded specimens are probably just waifs... the only combo hotumatua/ smithi trip would be to Pitcairn and that is about as likely as juvenile Centropyge growing from eggs in my system... :) You saw black Forcipiger longirostris at Easter?

When Peter Schmiedel and myself were on ASI we asked for a permit, but the answer was a polite but very clear no. Few things have changed on the Island since then, but not when it comes to collecting resplendens. A few single ones are showing up on the marked every year. They were surely collected illegally, either by someone who comes over by private boat (that was done before) or by someone from the USAF staff, flying them out on an military airplane. Couple of years back there was some smuggling of rock lobsters out of ASI via that route, so don't tell me that it isn't possible.
The only way civilians can get to ASI by plane is through a Royal Airforce Flight via Brice Norton (UK). They have quite some security on that airport so I doubt that you can smuggle fishes via that route.
Unless someone will convince the governor of ASI AND the environmental protection guys (may be an even bigger obstacle), you can either dream of a resplendens or support illegal collection (not counting the few TB ones from Frank Baensch).

Jens

ASI is VERY strict, and would not even offer collection of resplendens for science and a genetic bank when needed... although I see that since you've been there they have a burgeoning tourist industry (although still very small). The ones that enter Japan are exported out of Brazil after being collected from ASI and are as my Japanese friends call them "irregal". I saw so many of them on my trip to Japan last years they were the most common Xiphypops amongst the hard cores fishheads I visited! Did you see any Prognathodes dichrous when there Jens?

On the topic of ASI here is my Centropyge resplendens/ C. fisheri mixed species pair...

RFpair1.jpg
 
Hey Jens! C. smithi are so rare at Easter that the recorded specimens are probably just waifs... the only combo hotumatua/ smithi trip would be to Pitcairn and that is about as likely as juvenile Centropyge growing from eggs in my system... :) You saw black Forcipiger longirostris at Easter?

So we could still collect legally hotumatua at Pitcairn Island along with Chaetodon smithi:) Group Order Haha. Wait is there any other fish found olny at Pitcairn?
 
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