Heniochus diphreutes

mattzang · Oct 16, 2018

Just curious, but why are these so rare in the hobby?

https://www.liveaquaria.com/diversd...ref=4282&subref=AI&cmpid=E-_-TR-_-DDN-_-PRDCT

They look exactly like the non reef safe version, which is still beautiful, but obviously not going to work out great in a reef.

Is it because they're collected in Hawaii? Too hard to tell the difference between the reef safe version and non reef safe?

Someday when I get a bigger tank, I must have these!

Reefing Madness · Oct 17, 2018

Probably because those are a bonded pair of fish, not just a single.

mattzang · Oct 17, 2018

Reefing Madness said:
Probably because those are a bonded pair of fish, not just a single.

I mean the fish in general, not the bonded pair. That's the first time I've ever seen them offered online and my LFS don't even know they exist. There doesn't seem to be a ton of information on them out there, which just blows my mind. Everyone seems to like h. acuminata so I'm just shocked the reef safe version isn't way more collected/available/popular

B-ridge · Oct 17, 2018

I’m amazed also. In Hawaii there not hard to find and there in abundance. As well as the pyramid butterflies. I’m also surprised more vendors aren’t selling either. Maybe cause there not expensive and not much money to be made off them. I will continue keeping my eyes and ears open for both

don_chuwish · Oct 17, 2018

I've had Heniochus diphreutes on my wish list forever. Don't think it'll ever happen. Just never see them available.

B-ridge · Oct 17, 2018

It’ll happen. According to the guy in Hawaii Ron tubbs there’s not alot/enough interest in them. I find this not to be true cause I know of at least 5 people looking also. I’ll text him and see if there’s a way I could order a bunch. I see he has them on his order form

don_chuwish · Oct 17, 2018

I can imagine them being difficult to differentiate from h. acuminata in the retail channel. Both for distributors to keep track of which is which and for LFS at point of sale. Someone would go home with the wrong one for sure.

saltyhog · Oct 17, 2018

They are pretty common. We saw several large schools of them when we were in Kona. They can get pretty large. Wish they were more available. Cool fish.

B-ridge · Oct 17, 2018

Yeah I wish Colin aka zoacollector was still here. He would find and get them for us

mattzang · Oct 17, 2018

B-ridge said:
It’ll happen. According to the guy in Hawaii Ron tubbs there’s not alot/enough interest in them. I find this not to be true cause I know of at least 5 people looking also. I’ll text him and see if there’s a way I could order a bunch. I see he has them on his order form

I bet there's a lack of interest because people don't know they exist. I think every local LFS to me carries Heniochus acuminata all of the time, but I've told them about Heniochus diphreutes and they act semi interested, but not enough to actually look into them.

doesn't really matter for me since my tank is way too small, but if I ever got a bigger one...

mattzang · Oct 25, 2018

https://www.liveaquaria.com/diversd...ref=4282&subref=AI&cmpid=E-_-TR-_-DDN-_-PRDCT

sold out in 4 minutes!

that's it i'm quitting my job moving to hawaii and professionally collecting these

don_chuwish · Oct 25, 2018

Wow, I even got the sneak peek email and was going to check the listing - sold before I could get there. Beautiful pair.

jpmunoz · Oct 26, 2018

I have been looking for years, had a trio once that died during an outage in QT. Bought another trio on LA but they were not shipped for some reason.
The lack of availability that I have always heard from vendors was that they are poor shippers.

shred5 · Oct 27, 2018

mattzang said:
https://www.liveaquaria.com/diversd...ref=4282&subref=AI&cmpid=E-_-TR-_-DDN-_-PRDCT

sold out in 4 minutes!

that's it i'm quitting my job moving to hawaii and professionally collecting these

Kind of hard since Hawaii has band fish collecting. Over the next year as the current permits expire there will be no more fish from Hawaii.

Could be part of the reason for the price plus it is a pair.