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The peacock grouper is a member of the Serranidae family, native to the Indo-Pacific and common in home aquaria and as an invasive species.It is a mid-sized fish, growing up to 60cm. Thye have large mouths with thick lower lips and small fins.Its body is brown, but notable for the iridescent dark blue that tints it, particularly the edges of its fin. The peacock grouper is usually covered in hundreds of dark blue spots with cyan of white centres. As it ages, it commonly develops four to six thick white bars across the back portion of its body. One of its common names "argus grouper" is drawn from the many-eyed giant "Argus" of Greek mythology.

The foxface rabbitfish is a member of the Siganidae family, common in home aquaria, but native to reefs, lagoons and shallow waters of the Pacific Ocean, particularly Taiwan and New Caledonia.This fish is easily recognisable by its dorsal fin; usually flattened against the body, when stressed the rabbitfish will raise its spines, giving it a large, serrated appearance,The foxface rabbitfish has a bright yellow body and a white face with a black stripe from the top of the head, through the eye and to the snout, and a black patch from its pectoral fin to the bottom of its head. At night or when stressed, they can lighten their colouration to a mottled white-brown.The foxface rabbitfish is primarily herbivorous, requiring a diet of algae. However, it will readily feed on zooplankton if available.

Smooth glassies are small silver fish with translucent bodies. Their fins are almost completely translucent, with a deep notch in the centre of their dorsal fin.They can be distinguished from the almost identical bald glassy (Ambassis dussumieri) by the absence of serrations on their gill covers, facial spines and interruptions of their lateral line.Smooth glassies spend their entire lifecycles in estuaries, river mouths and floodplain lakes on the African east coast, particularly KwaZulu-Natal, Algoa Bay and Madagascar, where they form large schools. They are able to tolerate freshwater river mouths and a wide range of temperature fluctuations.They feed on floating crustaceans and zooplankton, as well as terrestrial insects, hunting primarily during mornings and evening in the summer, and all-day during winter.

Lined wrasses are orange-brown in colour with pale longitudinal blue-green lines. Their heads have irregular light blue-green lines.They have opercular flaps with black spots and caudal fins with broad black bars on the posterior part of the fin. Females are distinguished by the white versus yellow band on the base of the tail and males by the lined versus spotted pattern on the body.Lined wrasses inhabit coastal slopes and drop-off areas in small groups and can be found at depths between 20-45m.

Clarke's clownfish are small, orange-black fish with three distinct vertical stripes - one separating the head from the gill cover, one across the fish's posterior, behind their first dorsal fin and one on the peduncle, separating the dark body from the yellow tail. Their snouts are usually orange or pink.These colours vary regionally - in fact, Clarke's clownfish have the greatest colour variation of any clownfish species. For example, ones inhabiting dark anemones tend to be almost completely black, ones from Vanuatu are yellow with only two stripes and, in some groups, the males' yellow tail fins turn white if they undergo a sex-change.Clarke's clownfish have the furthest reaching distribution of any clownfish; they are found throughout the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean, most commonly in the Persian Gulf, west Australian coast, Indonesia, Micronesia, Taiwan and Japan.These clownfish live on coral reefs, in lagoons and on steep rocky reefs no deeper than 60m.Like most clownfish, Clarke's clownfish are immune to the stings of sea anemone tentacles and live amongst these tentacles for protection. The anemones benefit from this symbiotic relationship is protection from small predators and food scraps from the clownfish. There are 10 species of sea anemone known to host clownfish, and Clarke's clownfish have been found to exploit all of them.Clarke's clownfish are omnivores and opportunistically feed on dead anemone tentacles, food scraps, small crustaceans, small fish, zooplankton and algae.Within a group of Clarke's clownfish, a dominance hierarchy is present. All clownfish in a group are male hermaphrodites, except the largest who undergoes a change into a female.

This is a large, round urchin with medium length spines that can reach about half its diameter in length. Its body is black, and its spines are purple with a metallic sheen, rarely greenish at the tips. They are easily distinguished from similar species, eg. Needle urchins, by the presence of 5 grey zig-zagging sutures on their upper surface. Multiple generations of pot-hole urchin slowly excavate caves for themselves – hence their name. This multi-generational behaviour has resulted in pot-hole urchins having a patch distribution, occurring in huge numbers where they have been able to dig these excavations, eg. The Philippines and Sri Lanka, but rarer in other parts of the Indo-Pacific. They emerge from these hiding spots at night to catch scraps of floating algae.

Basket stars are brittle stars, close relatives of starfish you might be more familiar with.They have ten arms which each branch multiple times into progressively finer and more delicate tendrils. They are typically a dull blue-grey with dark stripes on their arms and small, black-ringed knobs on their central disc. They can grow very large, reaching over half a metre across.Basket stars typically anchor their central disc onto sea fans or other tall corals situated high up in reefs, and hold their arms outstretched to catch passing prey. The fine tendrils on their arms can interlock, forming a basket-like trap.When not feeding, basket stars can pull their tendrils and arms towards their central disk for protection.They are found only on the South African coast, from the Cape Peninsula to Algoa Bay.

Shortspined porcupinefish resemble a stereotypical "puffer fish" that most people can visualise - they have compact, boxy bodies, covered in scales that have been modified into short spines that can stand erect when the porcupinefish inflate their bodies and point backward at other times. Their spines are noticeably shorter on their heads, and completely absent from their tail peduncle. Their colouration is characteristic of the species; they have white bellies and like yellow-brown bodies. Dark brown or black bands run from below their eyes and under their heads, as well as a second set of bars just in front of their pectoral fins.Then threatened, shortspined porcupinefish can inflate their bodies to make themselves appear larger, and to help erect their spines as a further defence. They inflate their bodies by rapidly swallowing large amounts of water.In addition to their spines and thick skin, the flesh of the shortspined porcupinefish is also poisonous. Their toxin is called tetrodotoxin which is produced by symbiotic bacteria that live inside the fish. Tetrodotoxin is a neurotoxin that is deadly to humans - in fact, it is estimated to be 25x more toxic than cyanide to mammals.Unlike most other fish, porcupinefish lack anal fins.Their teeth are fused together into a beak-like mouth which they typically keep open to that they can react quickly if they are attacked and need to swell up by swallowing water. Their beaks help them to feed on hard-shelled prey, such as crustaceans and molluscs. Their genus name, Diodon, refers to their beaked mouth, literally meaning "two teeth" in Greek.Shortspined porcupinefish inhabit tropical and subtropical waters throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans and on the Atlantic coast of South Africa. They are common on coral reefs, rocky reefs and shallow lagoons, ranging to a maximum depth of about 90m. In these habitats, they typically hide in caves or the shade of corals during the day and come out at night to feed.