Lemonpeel angelfish

About

The lemonpeel angelfish (Centropyge flavissima) is one of the most recognizable dwarf angels in the hobby, dressed head to tail in deep, saturated yellow with a distinctive blue ring around each eye and matching blue trim on the gill covers and fins. That eye-ring is the easiest way to tell it apart from other all-yellow fish you might encounter in the trade. In the wild it ranges widely across the eastern Indian Ocean through the western and central Pacific, turning up everywhere from the Tonga islands to Rapa and even Easter Island, where it typically haunts coral-rich shallows and rubble zones, grazing algae off hard surfaces. In the aquarium it carries on much the same way, spending most of its day picking at rockwork and substrate, which makes a well-established tank with plenty of live rock a real asset. The trouble with lemonpeels is that this same grazing tendency can tip over into nipping at coral polyps and clam mantles, so they are generally not the safest choice for a dedicated reef system. They are best suited to a FOWLR setup or a reef where the keeper accepts some risk. Overall care sits at an intermediate level. Not the hardest dwarf angel to keep, but not a beginner fish either.