Dutch wholesaler DeJong Marinelife is showing off ten aquacultured Bandit Angelfish, Apolemichthys arcuatus, and says it is the only supplier in Europe to be offering them right now. Bandit angels are beautiful monochrome pomacanthids that used to be available via Hawaii, but since the ban, they have been off the menu and even if the ban gets lifted, wild Bandits are no longer on the list of permitted species for export. That left a huge hole in the hobby for these striking fish, until this September when we saw Japanese wholesaler Kamihata showing off captive-bred individuals, followed by Unique Fins saying they had one of those in the US. Squabbles started over whether the fish were really Stateside or not but we were more focused on the fact that someone, somewhere had bred them. And just when we worried we would never see them again.
Fast forward two months and DeJong has at least ten of them, and just in time for the Marine Aquarium Conference Europe, held next week at the Vivarium show in Holland. We’re off to visit their world-class breeding facility next week, and previous visitors did spot adult arcuatus there before. But going by the omittance of the words “we bred these at DeJong,” in the social media post we’re going to guess they’ve been bred elsewhere, we know of several notable angelfish breeders worldwide, but we don’t mind who they came from. We’re just happy DeJong has them, we know they won’t be cheap, but we want to see them back in aquariums. They look stunning.
