Venustus Angelfish (Paracentropyge venusta)| Fish Spotlight

fabutahoun

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Today I’ll Talk about my latest fish Addition to my Reef Tank , Venustus Angelfish.


The Venustus Angelfish or Purple Masked Angelfish, or Paracentropyge venusta, is one of the rare fish species, but it is becoming more available recently in the aquarium fish industry. It is expert only fish, reef safe with caution. In my tank, it rarely nip on Acropora corals. But leave other corals and clams alone.

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It is a shy fish, and it took 3 weeks for it to start coming out of the caves in my tank.

Venustus angel Usually found in caves and deep reef slopes; it needs to be acclimated, to bright light of the home aquarium. Requires open rock structure, with some caves and overhangs. It has bright yellow body, with the purplish/blue triangular patch over the eye, and saddle across the back.

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The Venustus Angelfish is a very picky eater. In the wild it naturally eats sponges, but it can be trained to eat frozen foods with time and patience and careful acclimation to aquarium life, it is better to be added to well established aquarium so the fish can find some sponges to eat. And it should be fed Angelfish Formula that contains sponge as well as frozen mysis shrimp and spirulina.

After some farther research, It appears that there are few other Synonyms for the scientific name for this fish.

Originally It was named “Holacanthus venustus” then it was named Sumireyakko venustus, Centropyge venustus and Paracentropyge venusta. My researcher showed that Centropyge venustus in not a valid Name and should not be used.


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revhtree

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Thank you for the awesome spotlight of such a beautiful fish!!
 

eatbreakfast

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Some resources name it venusta, other name it venustus. Venustus sound cooler
While venustus may sound cooler, if you used scientific resources, rather than just hobbyist resources you will find that venusta is accurate.

An author has an ethical responsibility to find and disseminate correct information. If you can't get the name correct how can we trust anything else that is presented.

The words Centropyge and Paracentropyge are feminine, making venusta the correct form, not venustus.
 
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fabutahoun

fabutahoun

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Awesome addition! I've seen one of these come in to a friends store marked as a coral beauty. I kindly told him to look up venustus angel for pricing.
Surly it costs a few dollars more than a coral beauty ;)
 

steveb

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Beautiful fish. Thank you for posting the article. Hope you have great success!

Today I’ll Talk about my latest fish Addition to my Reef Tank , Venustus Angelfish.
The Venustus Angelfish or Purple Masked Angelfish, or Paracentropyge venusta, is one of the rare fish species, but it is becoming more available recently in the aquarium fish industry. It is expert only fish, reef safe with caution. In my tank, it rarely nip on Acropora corals. But leave other corals and clams alone.

So it doesn't mess with LPS (assuming here as you didn't specify types) and clams in your tank at all? Nice to hear.
 
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fabutahoun

fabutahoun

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Beautiful fish. Thank you for posting the article. Hope you have great success!



So it doesn't mess with LPS (assuming here as you didn't specify types) and clams in your tank at all? Nice to hear.

for LPS the ones I have are never touched, Goniopora, blastomussa, frogspawn, Cyphastrea and chalice
 

vetteguy53081

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While they stay small, they hold their coloration through adulthood. Unfortunately, they are not the easiest to keep and are an impulse fish that should be left to an experienced hobbyist. Their diet at times are a challenge and they are reef safe caution, invert caution and require a long period of acclimation to tank to have a half a chance of adapting to tank conditions.
Sponge and Mysis is a must in their diet.
Adult:

Centropyge%2520venustus%2520-%2520%28Purplemask%2520angelfish%29.bmp
 

vetteguy53081

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Unfortunately mainly wholesalers get these and ship to larger stores. An option is liveaquaria and fishybusiness who gets the rare and odd occasionally
 

Bouncingsoul39

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A beautiful but very difficult to keep Angel. Getting them to eat anything was always a challenge so if you're going to try one, it's best to do so in a larger sized well established reef tank with lots of rock they can pick at until they acclimate.
 

o2manyfish

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I struggled for years to keep these pretty angels. I currently have a trio of Venusta in my 400g reef. My display tank has over 130 fish. So it's a busy tank. The Venusta need a very well established aquarium for them to go into where they can hide and eat on their own schedule from things they hunt for. This is the type of Fish that putting into a QT tank and trying to get it to eat food you drop in while it sits with a piece of rock or some pipe is going to make your chance of success very very very low. Even after the trio has been doing well for over a year some nights I have to sit at the tank for a long time to try to spot all 3 at the same time to make sure all 3 are still doing well. This is my second trio. My previous trio were doing great for over 3.5 years until a power failure wiped out a majority of my fish population. I was able to get (3) small-medium Venusta right away and these went into the tank and adjusted to tank life easily. My tank is heavily packed with just about every kind of coral there is. If a coral is RTN'ing - then these guys will accelerate the process. But with healthy corals they will swim over, take a peck and then move on. They aren't eating the coral they find something to eat that's on the coral and move on. They haven't bothered any of my clams. My next challenge is to try to get a pair of Colini's to thrive in my system. The other nice thing about the Venusta is they don't bother any other fish, and nobody seems to notice them. No fish anger issues. Other angels in the tank with this trio include - Pair of Goldflakes (just spotted trying to spawn for the first time 2 weeks ago --woo hoo), trio of Flame Backs, trio of Bellus, Pair of mis-barred Yellow belly regals, flame angel, pair of goldens and a joculator. Challenge yourself to spot all 3 Venusta at the same time -- live webcam with PTZ - www.o2manyfish.com/webcam --- Tank lights come on at 5pm pacific time.

Dave B
 
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fabutahoun

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I struggled for years to keep these pretty angels. I currently have a trio of Venusta in my 400g reef. My display tank has over 130 fish. So it's a busy tank. The Venusta need a very well established aquarium for them to go into where they can hide and eat on their own schedule from things they hunt for. This is the type of Fish that putting into a QT tank and trying to get it to eat food you drop in while it sits with a piece of rock or some pipe is going to make your chance of success very very very low. Even after the trio has been doing well for over a year some nights I have to sit at the tank for a long time to try to spot all 3 at the same time to make sure all 3 are still doing well. This is my second trio. My previous trio were doing great for over 3.5 years until a power failure wiped out a majority of my fish population. I was able to get (3) small-medium Venusta right away and these went into the tank and adjusted to tank life easily. My tank is heavily packed with just about every kind of coral there is. If a coral is RTN'ing - then these guys will accelerate the process. But with healthy corals they will swim over, take a peck and then move on. They aren't eating the coral they find something to eat that's on the coral and move on. They haven't bothered any of my clams. My next challenge is to try to get a pair of Colini's to thrive in my system. The other nice thing about the Venusta is they don't bother any other fish, and nobody seems to notice them. No fish anger issues. Other angels in the tank with this trio include - Pair of Goldflakes (just spotted trying to spawn for the first time 2 weeks ago --woo hoo), trio of Flame Backs, trio of Bellus, Pair of mis-barred Yellow belly regals, flame angel, pair of goldens and a joculator. Challenge yourself to spot all 3 Venusta at the same time -- live webcam with PTZ - www.o2manyfish.com/webcam --- Tank lights come on at 5pm pacific time.

Dave B

Thanks For Your comment and sharing this info.

I added my Venusta to the tank directly. it disappeared for few days then I found it inside my external overflow box. so i kept it there for another week. the water level is still enough for the fish even if the pumps are off. and the box was full of things that this fish can feed on.

Same thing here with picking on my sps. it just takes a quick pick. It never touched my clams.

For other angelfish aggregation, at the start only my pair of coral beauties was very aggressive. but the fish was quick and small and can escape them easily.

Being a deep water fish, it is swimming outside of the caves more often at early morning more than when the lights are on. but recently it started to come out more frequently in regular tank hours

BTW I love your angelfish collection :)
 

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