Mystery Fish At Waikiki Aquarium (one with orange fins)

Genicanthus personatus I assume, looks quite like it and the species is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands.

@Ebirah766 That is correct, it is a male Genicanthus personatus.

@Great Argus Also a new species for the site!

@Great Argus A very rare and beautiful fish in the aquarium trade, a holy grail if you will.

@DelacoursLangur Indeed it is, I think I have only seen one listed for sale.

Wow I had no idea this fish is so rare. I’m happy I got an opportunity to see it then!

@EternalPigeon Indeed, it is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. It has been bred in captivity though, the resulting young being sent out in the fish trade.

@Great Argus Like many of the rarest and most expensive aquarium fish, the price is dictated by not just the beauty, but mainly by the extreme risks associated with collecting them at the depths they frequent. The only more expensive wild type fish I can think of in the hobby is the peppermint angelfish, of which only a handful have ever been collected, and it lives at even deeper depths..

@DelacoursLangur I think Centropyge narcosis and Centropgye nigriocella might have it beat, as well as some of the Tosanoides anthiases and the Bladefin Basslet Jeboehlkia gladifer.

@Great Argus Looking into these I think you have a point, I havnt looked into it in a while. Im pretty sure price point of these fish is rather arbitrary however as the limited demand and supply for such expensive fish means that very few are sold, and when they are it is for what the distributor such as liveaquaria decides its worth rather than any real sustained market demand. For example the Peppermint angelfish is listed all over the place as the most expensive at 30k, but thats only because like one or maybe two Japanese hobbyists decided that was what it was worth to them. That said its still fun to look at these outlandishly priced specimens however and dream, and I must admit I have always found the deepwater fish uniquely interesting and delicately beautiful, much like organisms living in alpine ecosystems.