Aquacultured angel fish are becoming more and more common these days. New species are being successfully raised all the time and its hard to keep track of them all.

The multibar angel (Paracentropyge multifasciata) is a hard fish to keep. They are beautiful, with white and black bars going down their sides. They have a very pretty yellow underneath that really stands out as they swim. These fish are labeled “expert only” by some online retailers. Why are they so difficult? They dont like to switch to our prepared foods when they come from the wild. This is one of those fish that we haven’t had inside our store due to difficulty until now.

We have had multiple Multibar angels grace our store recently and they started eating the day they were acclimated to our aquariums. We even have video of them eating pellets and other various frozen foods. S0 how did we do that, you ask? How did we take a fish that has been labeled expert only and get them to eat food the day they came in? It’s simple and it’s complex: they were aquacultured. I am very excited about this fish being bred in captivity. It makes such a difference in the quality of the fish and they are very well adjusted to aquarium life. Aquaculture has proved to be so important to our hobby. It’s amazing that these fish didn’t come from the ocean so they are more sustainable. But it’s more than that. Aquaculture has once again taken a fish that is extremely difficult to keep in an aquarium and turned it into an eating machine that is setup for success in an aquarium. That is one of the most exciting things for me about aquaculture. We are raising fish that will not just survive, but thrive!

Another thing that helps is the type of food we are feeding them.  Once again TDO pellets from Reef Nutrition are the food of choice among these typically hard to feed angelfish. It is by far my favorite pelleted food. I am feeding it to my baby clownfish and my baby freshwater angels.

So who bred this amazing fish? It’s Bali Aqua’s Rich of course. They have been an amazing force in the Aquaculture Movement. It’s staggering the amount of new fish being released by them. They have most definitely cracked the aquaculture code. It’s not just angels that they have raised either. They had the first purple tang ever bred over the summer, we have some batfish also raised by them, and there are so many more. It’s very exciting and amazing that they have bred and raised all of these types of fish. Now we just need someone to raise these fish on a commercial level because the wild caught ones just don’t do well most of the time.

I hope I have inspired you to buy captive bred fish whenever possible. They are simply better suited for your home aquarium. Thank you for reading!

Here is a video of them eating pellets

Here is our podcast on the Multibar Angelfish-