Glenn Andert’s blog

This is one of my all time favorite fish. Stunning beauty. Fiesty. Wants to play hide and seek, so I’ve taken tons of photos that turned out terrible. But on this day, I won the lottery and captured this guy while he played with me.

That’s a typical first move on his part, aggression to let you know that you are in his territory – never mind the fact that I’m 10 times bigger than he is! But a split second later, and …

But not gone, here he comes again …

Around and around we go, and finally … GOT HIM

Apparently Emperor Angelfish eat sponges and algae are related stuff. I have normally seen them in pairs, but obviously they must be found singly as well. The juvenile coloring and markings are so radically different than the adult coloring that you would never guess they are the same fish. I’ve seen juveniles, but have yet to get any good photos. As with most salt-water fish, these are not bred in captivity, yet are popular aquarium specimens – so somebody is catching them in the wild.

These shots were taken on the ocean side of Namotu Island which a tiny little spot in the outermost reef system of the Mamanucas Fiji.

Malolo Island is in the NE corner, which is where I would keep ‘Learjet’ overnight. In the morning, I would sail ‘Learjet’ down to Namotu Island which is not quite the southernmost island in that photo. I’d anchor ‘Learjet’ on the NE side of Namotu in a rolly surgy little patch of sand, and take the dinghy around to the opposite side of the island on the ocean side, and dive there off the steep dropoff.