Chaetodontoplus conspictilatus marine angelfish caught and than put back.

A large conspict at an aandtsociety trip was on the Rufus king about a month back and was so easy to catch it was too hard to resist.

Once these,one time Ausy indemic fish,are sent over seas,after the conspicts are caught from either new cal or australian waters,they can fetch a price of 1 to 4 thousand dollars on the retail market,thats a lot of money!

This particular one was so easy to get that,no net was needed, it was caught by hand!

This fish came out, after the filming, worst luck and swam right up had a look and just gently glided off and went under a section of the wreck.

We have been there heaps of times and hadn’t seen it.

The times we have been there, the spot it was hiding in was where the school of batfish were each time; maybe they were accidently camouflaging it the other times?

As juveniles, these fish are normally very cunning and can appear shy, yet they allow easy capture by their curious nature and if you approach them knowing that and in the right way, they are always easy to find and catch,if they are there and that is not common.

You should never chase these fish; capturing them that way will most likely not work!

This conspict was kept in Marks swimming pool tank, but he is getting rid of the system so I want to put it back in a totally different spot that very few commercial guys know of, if any.

The spot is just at snorkelling depth so we can go back one day and see if it is doing well and maybe if it lives well there, I am hoping it will remember a human or two, all ready it was sitting in your hand and remained there until to long or you apply a little pressure than out goes it’s gill spikes and you know it’s had enough,it seemed to like a pat or just tolerated it well!

The adults we have had before have always been of a good nature, which is understandable as they are more or less a Personifer or Meredithi and they are normally a good natured fish, in fact these will breed quite well together producing a hybrid that is an infertile off spring, but still looks quite nice and are extremely valuable over seas.

The conspict is a deep water fish as an adult so you have to make sure they do not get to badly bent on the way up, even in shallow water, we do find them in as little as 4 foot of water sometimes when they are not a full adult.

They may get bent in water deeper than 30 feet.

At the change over stage from juvenile to adult they head for the bottom over a short while, especially when the temps drop, always the same.

The water they live in has to be a stable 20 to 22 degrees, hard water ,high PH (cascaded water is best for them) high oxygen and very stable salinity of 25 to 26.

They should be put in an anti bacterial treatment before a relaxed tank life is achieved as they are rarely kept in the right conditions before you, (if you can afford the thousands price) buy them.

As juveniles they can tolerate a lot, but not as adults and will not adapt, their life style needs are built in, so don’t waste its life by trying to get it to except what its instincts tell it, it cannot do with out.

For its return to the ocean we picked out a good crack in this reef for its future safe nights of sanctuary where the predators will find it hard to get at it and the area has heaps of algae’s for it to graze on plus the canyon shape to the area leading to the crack,will give it a quick cover for safety.

We parked over what we thought was the reef,jumped in and it was the wrong one,no wonder very few have found this reef,even we found it hard to get it right.
The conspict was set up in a smallish bucket with a little acclimatising with the water there,than it was taken down and the lid was taken off infront of the crack at the end of the exact little canyon.
It slowly swam out of its bucket in what seemed like a daze,so it was protected while it got its bearings,it didn't seem to want to go into the crack and it had to so it new it was there,so its tail was pulled to annoy it and in it went and looked back from inside it,success!!
We swam back over its spot around an hour and half later and it seemed very well settled as it was having a go at a pushy large damsel near its new home,such a good feeling to see that!!
The angel that lived in that crack was collected a while back, so a very friendly (other angel) has it now .

The first pic is of a juvenile caught back in the early eighties,the pic was about three months after it was caught and it had lost some of it's juvenile colour.
It was nearly all very dark brown with a white line on top and a half moon yellow section init's tail.




Ths pic is just after the big one was caught.



This is a video of the baby in Marks little swimming pool set up.



This is the face of a very curious fish.



This is out in the boat as it is about to be taken down to its new home,i hope it does well,it will be good to see it's friendly face again.