Peppermint Angelfish Breeding?

SteveMM62Reef · Mar 30, 2026

Back in September 1st. there was an article that the Monterey Aquarium had successfully breed a pair of the Peppermint Angelfish, but couldn’t find anything printed since then, about this. Anyone seen anything else on this?

Zionas · Mar 31, 2026

No I haven’t, but don’t bank on CB ones becoming available any time soon. The only one in captivity might be one in Japan collected back in the early 2000s, 25 years in captivity by now which is a hell of thing but I don’t think they’re even being collected for the trade anymore.

And even if they were captive bred, I bet the offspring would still need high 60s-low 70s. Not your average reef fish you can plop into a mixed reef with medium-high lighting.

I still believe that the only way for lots of rarer, deepwater fish to stand a chance is for them to be captive bred. Not easy but that’s the only hope.

Lots of species we never see, that pretty much only go to Japan and are snapped up by collectors with dedicated setups, thick glass to insulate lower than average temperatures and simulate the conditions they’re caught from.

I look at those old Reef Builders articles and I’m like, we can only drool. And that’s assuming they also have access to collectors that can properly decompress the fish caught from those depths. Which 99% of us don’t. That’s not just $$ that’s who you know.

There was this customer of Koji Wada (who owns Blue Harbor) who had a rare deepwater Atlantic Liopropoma (not one of the species we usually get) with a swim bladder problem. Koji’s team sent a few people over to his house, and used a needle to remove excess air from the fish’s swim bladder.

That’s fricking cool (albeit not nice for the fish).

Most of the deepwater species we get from Philippines and Indonesia aren’t caught with the best methods and don’t live that long.

I hope one day lots of deepwater species will be available as aquacultured fish and affordable (relatively), just don’t know when.