Tuesday, June 29, 2010


Damselfish from Tufi, Papua New Guinea already starting to spread in the states

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The new damselfish captured by Seasmart fishermen in Papua New Guinea may have been discovered a little over a week ago but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a legal immigrant to American aquariums. Last week Sea Dwelling Creatures received the first batch of these PNG beauties and has already started distributing them to aquariums stores in the US. We acquired some specimens last week and now that they’ve settled into the quarantine tank, we can’t stress enough how beautiful these fish are. Granted our poor lighting and long distance travellers don’t yet look anything like the stunner that we posted last week, but they’re coloring up fast. Even better yet, we first feared thesewould be the type of Pomacnetrus or Stegastesdamselfish that starts out life with unbelievable colors but then becomes a dull adult. Thankfully, our small captive population shows the opposite pattern; the smallest fish are mostly greyish black with few blue markings and the larger the specimen, the more blue they are showing. Our largest resident Tufi damselfish is showing the tell tale thin blue stripe which lets us know at least we got the right fish.  Continue past the break for more details and lots more pictures.
Our Tufi damslefish are between one and two inches long and they are already showing a healthy amount of aggression, typical of damselfish. The Tufi reminds us of both a showy damselfish like a Pavo but it has the body and stockyness of a princess damselfish. Our guess is that this fish will retain the higher body profile and will develop colors on par with a large showy Pavo damselfish without getting quite as large. After scouring the literature, both physical and digital, we cannot find any mention of a damselfish that matches this species and it is very likely still undescribed. We really hope that Seasmart gets some recognition in the naming of this fish, if it is indeed unknown taxonomically. With Seasamrt program still very early in it’s exploration of the PNG shoreline, we hope to see many more jewels like this in the future. Big thanks to Sea Dwelling Creatures for helping us to acquire some of these exciting new damselfish.

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“Tufi” damselfish and brilliant cap clownfish from Papua New Guinea are the latest reef gems revealed by Seasmart

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The Tufi Damsellfish is an unidentified species of damselfish which was recently discovered by fishermen working for the Seasmart Program in Papua New Guinea. The Tufi damselfish was collected from Tufi in Oro Province of Papua New Guinea by the same fishermen who also brought us the Lightning Maroon Clownfish.  The PNG Tufi damselfish inhabits shallow to deep reefs, patch reefs and the fjords where it likes to stay close to tightly growing coral branches of birdnest and Anacropora coral. The Tufi damselfish is believed to be a Pomacentrus species but other genera are not being ruled out and it is very possible that the Tufi damselfish is a yet undescribed species. Along the same line of novelty, Seasmart is also catching small numbers of white bonnet clownfish, Amphiprion leucokranos which is very different from those from the Solomon Islands. SI white cap clowns are usually much more pink in body color but the PNG white cap have a distinct orange body color. The leucokranos clownfish from PNG are few and far between but we have gotten word that the first batch of Tufi damselfish are already on their way to marine livestock wholesalers in L.A. and Sea Dwelling Creatures, Quality Marine and Pacific Aqua Farms should hopefully be stocking the species soon.

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  1. nice. that damsel is really beautiful. Between the endemic orchids in their rainforests and the fish in their reefs, PNG has some incredible stuff going on.
  2. The cap Clownfish…oh how I’ve missed my love.
  3. That clown has def picked up more of the orange skunk coloring. I wonder how big it is.
    Ive got one female and shes like yellowly brown, more like a blue stripe.
    Awesome stuff coming from seasmart.
  4. What I am more interested to know is if the white cap is found with chrysopteus + skunk parents as some literature said.
  5. i just got four of these damsels today, a friend picked them up from SDC for me. they were calling them somthing else and no one knew how much they were apparently haha. but non the less, i got four and they do look great.
    -clay
  6. Hey Clay how many did you get and how big are they? I just received mine this morning and of the 6 I have, the two larger ones are by far more colorful. Is that the case with your specimens?

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Thursday, June 3, 2010


Four new tuna plants mulled

Source: 
By ELLEN TIAMU
PAPUA New Guinea will soon become a haven for fish canneries with four new tuna processing plants planning to operate here.
Overseas investors find PNG an attractive business destination because of the country’s good fishing ground, market access to the European Union and National Fisheries Authority (NFA) concessions.
One such company, Majestic Seafood, will be signing a project agreement with the government and the Morobe provincial government on Tuesday in Port Moresby to allow it to commence work on a tuna canning factory in Malahang, Lae.
A groundbreaking ceremony to mark the commencement of work on the factory will take place at Malahang industrial center in Lae the next day.
Majestic Seafood is a joint venture partnership between Frabelle Fishing Corp of Philippines, Century Canning Corp, also of the Philippines, and Thai Union Manufacturing Co of Thailand.
Frabelle already operates in PNG as Frabelle PNG Ltd, based at Milfordhaven in Lae.
With an initial investment of US$30 million (K85 million), the fish cannery will have a processing capacity of 350mt of tuna per day and is expected to create 6,000 new jobs.
The NFA board has given approval for another company, ZZDF owned by a Chinese company, Zho Shan Zheyeng Deep Sea Fishing, to build a tuna processing plant also based at Malahang.
Trans Pacific Journey Fishing is yet another company hoping to start an off-shore processing plant in PNG.
It is a joint venture company of the Fishing Corp and TSP Marine Industries, both from the Philippines.
It is also set to sign a statement of intent with the government soon.
Another company, Niugini Tuna, is looking at setting up a fish production plant in Madang.
 

Four new tuna plants mulled

Source: 
By ELLEN TIAMU
PAPUA New Guinea will soon become a haven for fish canneries with four new tuna processing plants planning to operate here.
Overseas investors find PNG an attractive business destination because of the country’s good fishing ground, market access to the European Union and National Fisheries Authority (NFA) concessions.
One such company, Majestic Seafood, will be signing a project agreement with the government and the Morobe provincial government on Tuesday in Port Moresby to allow it to commence work on a tuna canning factory in Malahang, Lae.
A groundbreaking ceremony to mark the commencement of work on the factory will take place at Malahang industrial center in Lae the next day.
Majestic Seafood is a joint venture partnership between Frabelle Fishing Corp of Philippines, Century Canning Corp, also of the Philippines, and Thai Union Manufacturing Co of Thailand.
Frabelle already operates in PNG as Frabelle PNG Ltd, based at Milfordhaven in Lae.
With an initial investment of US$30 million (K85 million), the fish cannery will have a processing capacity of 350mt of tuna per day and is expected to create 6,000 new jobs.
The NFA board has given approval for another company, ZZDF owned by a Chinese company, Zho Shan Zheyeng Deep Sea Fishing, to build a tuna processing plant also based at Malahang.
Trans Pacific Journey Fishing is yet another company hoping to start an off-shore processing plant in PNG.
It is a joint venture company of the Fishing Corp and TSP Marine Industries, both from the Philippines.
It is also set to sign a statement of intent with the government soon.
Another company, Niugini Tuna, is looking at setting up a fish production plant in Madang.
 

Four new tuna plants mulled

Source: 
By ELLEN TIAMU
PAPUA New Guinea will soon become a haven for fish canneries with four new tuna processing plants planning to operate here.
Overseas investors find PNG an attractive business destination because of the country’s good fishing ground, market access to the European Union and National Fisheries Authority (NFA) concessions.
One such company, Majestic Seafood, will be signing a project agreement with the government and the Morobe provincial government on Tuesday in Port Moresby to allow it to commence work on a tuna canning factory in Malahang, Lae.
A groundbreaking ceremony to mark the commencement of work on the factory will take place at Malahang industrial center in Lae the next day.
Majestic Seafood is a joint venture partnership between Frabelle Fishing Corp of Philippines, Century Canning Corp, also of the Philippines, and Thai Union Manufacturing Co of Thailand.
Frabelle already operates in PNG as Frabelle PNG Ltd, based at Milfordhaven in Lae.
With an initial investment of US$30 million (K85 million), the fish cannery will have a processing capacity of 350mt of tuna per day and is expected to create 6,000 new jobs.
The NFA board has given approval for another company, ZZDF owned by a Chinese company, Zho Shan Zheyeng Deep Sea Fishing, to build a tuna processing plant also based at Malahang.
Trans Pacific Journey Fishing is yet another company hoping to start an off-shore processing plant in PNG.
It is a joint venture company of the Fishing Corp and TSP Marine Industries, both from the Philippines.
It is also set to sign a statement of intent with the government soon.
Another company, Niugini Tuna, is looking at setting up a fish production plant in Madang.