Genicanthus Semifasciatus!!!

[acronautical]

Stunning pair! What a great find.

 

[small alien]

Awesome. I've never seen that species before. My jaw literally dropped at that first photo of the male. Beautiful.

 

[LemonLemon]

my turn now!

i just obtained 3 females to add to my current one.

i did not want to get a male and so i'm gonna let the 4 females work it out and a male should emerge out of the 4 soon.

 

[LemonLemon]

here's some blur shots of my females, including one super blur shot of all 4 in one frame.

i've tried keeping genicanthus in male-female pairs before but the males always end up reverting back to females. i don't know why, perhaps there isn't enough interaction between my artificially formed pairs. so this time i got 4 females and let them do their own sorting and hopefully a male will emerge.

 

[skibum9884]

Very nice Lemon! I'm hoping I can find myself a pair/trio of small females and do the same.

 

[copps]

I almost choked the vendor LMAO

Wow Manny... you have to fear a guy that would choke a fish store employee... and even more so someone who would do it laughing... but underlining that sentence really puts the icing on the cake!:fun2:

Very nice fish guys! I got my pair back in 2008...

I had them in my sps reef as you can see here...

Thank tank runs 77 to 79, and over the course of years my male was thinning out... so I yanked them and put them in my 292 gallon fish only, and the male fattened back up... this tank runs ~70 in the winter to 75 in the summer... they seem to like this temp much more now and looking at their natural range it makes more sense. I replaced them in my sps tank with a G. lamarck pair that is stunning and does well at those temps.

If you want to do a harem start them off that way... I tried to add a second female and the existing female went nuts...hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!

Copps

 

[LemonLemon]

nice copps!

any updates on that semi-semifasciatus hybrid you found?

 

[29reef]

Very cool lemon, do they interact like other dwarf angel females?

These fish are fantastic, I'm very happy to see healthy males and females coming into the hobby.

 

[SDguy]

Interesting info, John. Did you notice color/pattern changes with the male when moving from one tank to another?

 

[LemonLemon]

they are less aggressive than dwarf angels that i've tried to pair or form harems with.... in this instance. i'm not sure if that's the general rule, that genicanthus are far less aggressive than centropyges. perhaps copps can help here.

the females started off with some light chasing but settled after a few hours. the oldest female which i've had for about 2 months is eating all kinds of stuff and is the most dominant one out of 4. but that's not to say it may stay that way, because one of the new female is larger.

the 3 new additions are all healthy and feeding. one is still very very shy and remains in hiding, hovering at her spot for most of the day. the other 2 are already out and very active.

i'll have to monitor all three especially the shy on closely over the next few days and see how everything pans out.

 

[copps]

nice copps!

any updates on that semi-semifasciatus hybrid you found?

Man... that fish had issues and never really settled in... it wasted away and kicked it. Some fish I think post collection from either decompression or pinning end up with issues that will only sometimes show themselves months down the line... frustrating... but I only worry about things I have control over... so no sweat! I do have the fish preserved for genetic testing in the future... Here are the shots of when I got it... I took some after I had it for a little while and the color had changed a bit... I need to dig those up on my home PC... here are shots of the G. semifasciatus/ melanospilos hybrid...

Interesting info, John. Did you notice color/pattern changes with the male when moving from one tank to another?

Not really... just an obvious fattening up... I think the two are unrelated... the male began the transition to that famous half male/ half female coloration in the reef... and holds it today in the fish only... lemon's idea of starting with all females is a good one...

One of the most striking angelfishes I've ever seen was a male semifasciatus at the Dallas World Aquarium when I spoke for the Dallas club a couple of years ago... WHAT A FISH! This male was a Japanese collected specimen in a 1500 gallon exhibit with females, and was as orange as a TRAFFIC CONE! I can also dig up those photos at home... what a fish! I wonder if the Japanese semifasciatus are more vibrant, as I've seen possible evidence of this in photos too, in relation to the Philippine ones we see in the hobby... things that make you go hmm...

they are less aggressive than dwarf angels that i've tried to pair or form harems with.... in this instance. i'm not sure if that's the general rule, that genicanthus are far less aggressive than centropyges. perhaps copps can help here.

I'd agree... mixing female Genicanthus all at once can be easier than Centropyge, but one of the reasons for this may be that Genicanthus are so sexually dichromatic that we can tell when a female is a female... with Centropyge often times its not so easy and I think many times this is what results in a lot of that initial aggression...

Copps

 

[LemonLemon]

thanks for the reply copps.

i've seen photos of the dallas semifasciatus and then i went into the A&E for shortness of breath. i've read that semifasciatus in japan grew slower, and attained a bigger size with more vibrant colours than their philippines counterpart.

could be the cooler water there that's influencing their slower growth and larger size by playing with the metabolism.

 

[copps]

thanks for the reply copps.

i've seen photos of the dallas semifasciatus and then i went into the A&E for shortness of breath. i've read that semifasciatus in japan grew slower, and attained a bigger size with more vibrant colours than their philippines counterpart.

could be the cooler water there that's influencing their slower growth and larger size by playing with the metabolism.

Hmm... were they my photos? I cannot remember if I ever showed them. It could be the cooler water... I'd be curious to see how much genetic flow there is between the populations... I know the Japanese lemonpeels look like they're on steroids! I may be diving in Japan soon so hopefully I could see for myself...

 

[LemonLemon]

copps, what do you think of this.

i've had the photo for awhile. it's taken by my friend in hongkong. he bought the fish.

do you think it's a bellus x melanospilos? or semifasciatus x melanospilos. i'm leaning toward the former... the position of the yellow on the stripes is very bellus.

 

[Genetics]

I do have the fish preserved for genetic testing in the future...

Copps

That's great! I know genetic costs are coming down fast. Can I ask how the fish is preserved? RNA and DNA can be finicky to store long-term.

 

[LemonLemon]

here's a shot of the dallas male semi.

this was posted by iwishihadgills.

 

[LemonLemon]

here are some wild shots of G. semifasciatus in the wild. check out that insane tail of the melanospilos too!

these are taken in japan, as can be seen by the C. nippon in the first photo.

copps, do they look any different from the philippine ones? to me, they just look larger.

 

[SDguy]

Not really... just an obvious fattening up... I think the two are unrelated... the male began the transition to that famous half male/ half female coloration in the reef... and holds it today in the fish only... Copps

Interesting. I asked because I noticed a significant change with my male blackspot when I upgraded the reef from the 110g to the 150g.

 

[copps]

copps, what do you think of this.

i've had the photo for awhile. it's taken by my friend in hongkong. he bought the fish.

do you think it's a bellus x melanospilos? or semifasciatus x melanospilos. i'm leaning toward the former... the position of the yellow on the stripes is very bellus.

What a fish! Looking at Genicanthus hybrids is always tricky as you have to factor in the different sex colors, and intermediate colors of both potential parent species... I'm fairly certain that fish is bellus x melanospilos...

That's great! I know genetic costs are coming down fast. Can I ask how the fish is preserved? RNA and DNA can be finicky to store long-term.

Good old flash frozen... while this is hard on collection trips this works great when one of my fish kicks it at home. The group I've been working with has had no trouble using my frozen samples...

here's a shot of the dallas male semi.

this was posted by iwishihadgills.

That's him!

 

[LemonLemon]

That's him!

haha!

oh i found this line so funny

"that's him! he's the one! he's the freaking brilliant semi in dallas aquarium"

i wish i could see it in real life. must be amazing!