🐠 Blue Line Grouper (Cephalopholis formosa)
A Light Red-Brown Body Striped With Fine Blue Lines • A Hardy Cave Ambush Predator • Low-Maintenance and Long-Lived
 
📋 The Blue Line Grouper, also known as the Bluelined Hind or Blue-Lined Rockcod, has an eye-catching light red-to-brown body marked with thin vertical blue lines, with fins picked out in darker blue.
It lives across the Indo-Pacific in and around coral reefs and rocky areas, secretive by nature and tucked into caves and crevices until food appears. It's a hardy fish once settled, with a naturally low metabolism that means it only needs feeding every other day, which makes it one of the easier groupers to look after.
It reaches up to 34cm, so plan on at least 380L for a young fish and about 680L for an adult. It's not reef safe: it won't harm corals, but it will eat any fish or crustacean small enough to fit in its mouth, so keep it as the only grouper, alongside robust, similarly assertive fish such as triggerfish, eels, or large angelfish.
 
💡 Highlights
🎨 Light Red Body, Fine Blue Lines: A distinctive, eye-catching grouper
🕳️ A Cave-Dwelling Ambush Predator: Secretive until food appears
💪 Hardy: Low metabolism, fed every other day
📏 Up to 34cm: A manageable grouper size
🪸 Not Reef Safe: Will eat any tankmate small enough to swallow