🐠 Candy Basslet (Liopropoma carmabi)
Marine Reef-Safe Deepwater Basslet • Orange & Lavender Horizontal Stripes With Red Accents • Genuinely Rare & Highly Sought-After • Intermediate Marine Fish
 
📋 The Candy Basslet has a genuinely eye-catching elongated body patterned with orange and lavender horizontal stripes, accented with fine red lines — a colouration genuinely intense enough to distinguish it from closely related species like the Swissguard and Swales Basslets.
Native to the Western Atlantic, from the Bahamas and Florida Keys through the eastern Caribbean to Curaçao, Bonaire, and Ascension off northern South America, this species genuinely inhabits caves and rocky recesses at depths of 15 to 75 metres, with most specimens found below 24 metres.
We want to be genuinely honest about why this species commands such a premium: given its deep, reclusive habitat, collection is genuinely difficult, costly, and limited, making it one of the rarer basslets to appear in the trade. A genuinely fascinating natural behaviour: in secluded areas, pairs court by swimming parallel to one another with their gill covers in contact. This species has also been the subject of a genuine rare captive-breeding success story, after years of effort overcoming an unusually long larval period. It's fully reef safe, though we want to be honest it may pose a risk to very small ornamental crustaceans that can fit in its mouth. It's genuinely best suited to a smaller reef tank decorated heavily with live rock, where its beauty and secretive habits can actually be enjoyed and appreciated.
 
🟠🟣 Highlights
🎨 Orange & Lavender Stripes With Red Accents: A genuinely intense, distinctive colouration
💎 Genuinely Rare & Highly Sought-After: Deep-water habitat makes collection genuinely difficult
💕 Genuine Courtship Display: Pairs swim parallel with gill covers touching
🌿 Fully Reef Safe: Genuine risk only to very small ornamental crustaceans
🏆 Genuine Rare Breeding Success: One of the few basslets bred in captivity