Grey Angelfish

The grey angelfish is a bold reef local that grows up to 60 cm long. Divers often meet it hovering alone over a reef, unbothered by close company, its disc-shaped body catching the light as it turns.

Also known as: gray angelfish

Adult grey angelfish can look like other large grey-and-black reef angelfish. Check the tail: a pale grey margin runs along its edge, a mark that stays fixed even though the body's spotting can vary.

Adults have a flat, disc-shaped body in pale grey, covered in fine black spots. The mouth is white, and the inside of the pectoral fin is yellow. Long streamers trail from the dorsal and anal fins. Young fish look completely different: a black body crossed by five narrow yellow bars, three on the head and two on the body, with a black patch in the middle of the yellow tail.

Lives over coral and rocky reefs at depths from 2 to 30 m. Young fish stay in shallower water, sheltering on patch reefs and in seagrass beds before moving out to deeper reef as they grow.

Feeds mainly on sponges, but also eats algae, sea squirts, gorgonian sea fans, hydroids, and small colonial animals called bryozoans. It is active by day and hides in the reef at night. Young grey angelfish also work as cleaners, picking parasites off larger fish that visit their cleaning station.

Pairs spawn over deep reef in the early morning. They swim up together, bellies touching, to release eggs and milt into open water, and may repeat this several times. The eggs drift with the plankton, and the larvae settle onto the reef once they grow large enough.

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  Angelfish

  angelfish

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  Bicolor angelfish

  Centropyge bicolor

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  Cortez Angelfish

  Pomacanthus zonipectus

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  Emperor angelfish

  Pomacanthus imperator

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  French Angelfish

  Pomacanthus paru

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  Keyhole Angelfish

  Centropyge tibicen