The masked swallowtail angelfish, Genicanthus personatus is the most highly coveted and expensive angelfish in the aquarium trade that is actually available for purchase, however rarely and expensive it may be. The masked or personatus angelfish is endemic to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands where collection and fishing is strictly prohibited so specimens of G. personatus must be collected near the main Hawaiian islands where this species rarely occurs.
A single specimen of personatus angelfish can sell for as much as $10,000 but the pair featured in this video was actually priced closer to $30,000 when they were listed on the japanese aquarium website B-Box Aquarium. The current owner is Dr. Wing Hung Chung and he has had the foresight to have a video camera handy for sharing many videos of his livestock on youtube, the most recent of which is this clip featuring the spawning of his incredibly rare pair of Genicanthus personatus. Having watched and filmed many reef fish spawnings myself, I can tell you that Dr. Chung probably watched his fish anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours just to catch this tiny little moment of spawning
that culminates only after what seems like a eternity of courtship. Congratulations to Dr. Chung for being the second person to spawn the extremely rare masked angelfish (the first documented spawning and rearing of personatus angelfish was at Hawaii’s Waikiki Aquarium) but as far as we know this is the first time their spawning has been captured on video. With such an illustrious group of fishes in his collection, there’s no doubt that Dr. Chung is a talented aquarist but we hope that he’ll now take up the challenge of collecting and rearing the eggs produced by his G. personatus pair. Follow the break for a longer, fully lit video of these fish just swimming around.