Ventralis anthias
 

Just wondering if anyone has info as far as getting this fish. I’ve been waiting for one to pop up somewhere, my lfs said the wholesaler never even heard of it. Is there like a ban on this fish that I don’t know about?

expensive, deep water, hard to get feeding, reletivly rare.

blue zoo has some, but cheapest is $150-$200 a female

Believe they are only occasionally collected and as said above are not average level care fish. Even well experienced aquarists have difficulty keeping these guys. Beautiful...absolutely! But their difficulties in maintenance would steer me clear of these.

Agree with what everyone has said. Generally speaking youll want to contact some smaller outfits that specialize in obtaining harder to find fish. They are obtainable but it might take some time depending on who you go through. A lot of those smaller outfits will condition the fish for you as well so that takes out some of the difficulty adjusting them to captive life and getting them to eat initially. I actually had been in the market for a harem of ventralis and had some offered to me about a month or so ago. Like with anything in this world you just gotta know the right people lol.

Regardless of where you get them from, they’re typically not recommended for our reef tanks. They come from deeper water, which means lower light and lower temperature than the average reef tank.