Doryrhamphus japonicus
 

Today I scored a rare find: a male of Doryrhamphus japonicus from Indonesia.
I was actually just looking for a Doryrhamphus excisus female and therefore just looking at the snouts of the caged pipefish at the store. Only after taking a closer look I notice that one of the 3 males was not colored like the others.
I have been after this pipefish for decades and it is the first time I have seen one in real life.
Here a video of him with the African D. excisus.

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(sorry for the vertical video, the stupid phone switched it without me noticing it.)

Now I just need to find him a female of his own species...

Well, after checking the reference books it turns out that this might actually be a Doryrhamphus malus. D. japonicus should have two narrow blue stripes and this one has just one. Though D. malus supposedly only comes from the Australian Great Barrier Reef...

Since they came from the same tank at the store I quarantine them together and they behave like a pair, always swimming next to each other. I kind of wonder if they will spawn and if what the babies might look like...

Well, turns out the African D. excisus female is a racist... I caught her attacking the D. malus male and had to separate them and put her with a male of her own kind I got a month earlier.

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Maybe she is NOT a racist, but has something against MALES so you will have to watch here with other males now.

No, she gets along fine with the male of her species.

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Did she get along with the OTHER male initially?

It looked like it.