Blackcap Basslet

Care at a glance

Overview

A hardy, easygoing carnivore that spends its time near a favorite cave, darting out to grab food and retreating just as quickly. It is peaceful toward unrelated tankmates but territorial toward its own kind and toward the similar-looking royal gramma, so keep only one per tank unless the system is large enough for separate territories. It is reef safe with corals, clams, and larger invertebrates, though it may pick off tiny amphipods, copepods, and very small ornamental shrimp. Feed a varied meaty diet of mysis, brine shrimp, and other frozen foods a couple of times a day.

In the wild

Lives on steep reef walls and drop-offs in the Caribbean and western Atlantic, including the Bahamas and the West Indies, typically in 20 to 60 meters of water and sometimes much deeper. It hovers upside down under ledges and ducks into a crevice the instant it feels threatened, gradually taking over the deeper rock face where the shallower royal gramma leaves off. In the aquarium it wants dim, cave-riddled rockwork and settles in best out of direct, intense lighting.

Good to know

Gramma melacara belongs to the small basslet family Grammatidae, alongside its close relative the royal gramma, and is the larger of the two at up to about 10 cm. It is a substrate spawner: the male builds and guards a nest of eggs in a rock crevice. It has been reared in captivity on a small scale, but nearly all specimens in the trade are still wild collected from deep reef habitat.

Did you know

Its vivid purple body and jet black cap make it one of the most photographed Caribbean reef fish, and true to its wall-dwelling habits it spends much of its time hanging upside down with its belly to the rock, exactly as it would on a vertical reef face in the wild.

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