Centropyge hotumatua (Hotumatua Angel) Breeding Guide

Centropyge hotumatua is a rare subtropical Eastern Pacific dwarf angel living in harems and spawning pelagic eggs. Home breeding is not feasible; this guide documents its real biology.

Overview

Centropyge hotumatua is a small dwarf angelfish of the subtropical Eastern Pacific, recorded from the Austral Islands including Rapa, Pitcairn and Easter Island. It reaches about 10 cm at depths between roughly 14 and 50 m over coral and rocky bottoms with abundant crevices, feeding on filamentous algae. It is rarely exported through the aquarium trade and is not bred by hobbyists.

Sexing

As a protogynous dwarf angel, the species matures as female, and the dominant female in a group becomes male when the resident male is lost. Functional sex tracks social rank rather than fixed external markers, so juveniles cannot be reliably sexed by sight.

Spawning Behavior & Trigger

Centropyge hotumatua forms harems of three to seven individuals. Reproduction follows the genus pattern: the male courts each female through the late afternoon, and at dusk a female ascends into the water column with the male nuzzling her vent before releasing pelagic eggs near the top of the rise. The eggs float upward on an oil droplet into surface plankton.

Egg & Fry Care

Eggs in this genus are transparent, spherical and about 0.6-0.7 mm across. Larvae hatch tiny, use the yolk sac within roughly three days, and then need extremely small first foods such as copepod nauplii because rotifers are too large for the first-feeding mouth. There is no parental care, and larval rearing is the principal obstacle to captive production.

Common Challenges

• The species is rarely collected, so even broodstock is hard to source.
• Pelagic eggs disperse on release and cannot be collected from a display.
• First-feeding larvae need live copepod nauplii rather than rotifers.
• No captive rearing of this species has been documented.