Eibl's Angelfish

About

The Blacktail Angelfish (Centropyge eibli) is one of those dwarf angels that rewards a closer look. Its pale body is laced with thin vertical orange lines that fade toward the rear, where a bold dark band and black-edged tail create a sharp contrast. That distinctive tail marking is often the quickest way to identify it in the store or on the reef. In the wild it ranges across a broad arc of the Eastern Indian Ocean, from Sri Lanka down through Indonesia to Western Australia, typically found picking through algae on seaward rocky reefs and coral-rich slopes. It lives in small harems in nature, which is worth knowing if you ever consider keeping more than one. There is also a notable tendency to hybridize with closely related dwarf angels like Centropyge vrolikii where their ranges overlap, and documented hybrids with other congeners have turned up on remote Indian Ocean islands. So unusual-looking specimens sometimes make their way into the trade. In the aquarium, Eibl's Angelfish is generally calm toward unrelated tankmates but can show the typical dwarf angel territoriality toward other angelfish, particularly its own kind. It's an intermediate-level fish that benefits from an established tank with natural algae growth and plenty of rockwork to explore.