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Home › Sea Wildlife › Marine Species › Vertebrate › Tilefishes

Interesting Facts about Tilefishes

[Tilefish Phylum: Chordata] [Class: Actinopterygii] [Order: Acanthuriformes] [Family: Malacanthidae]

Tilefish are a species of brightly coloured marine fishes that are best known for the colourful appearance, complex burrowing habits, and commercial importance.

This section contains information about 50 different species of tilefishes (Malacanthidae), such as where they live, what they eat, and how these percomorph marine fish reproduce.

Tilefish Worldwide Distribution and Habitats

Tilefishes are mostly an offshore species that inhabits depths shallower than fifty (500) metres (1,500 feet).

They are more prevalent in temperate and tropical waters, such as the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, but especially:

• Eastern Atlantic (e.g., the coast of West Africa and the Mediterranean)
• Indo-Pacific (coral reef formations, continental shelves and slopes)
• Western Atlantic (from Nova Scotia in the north to the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, Venezuela, and even Suriname in South America)

The depth ranges for tilefish varies considerably, fluctuating between fifty and five hundred metres. Some species live even deeper.

As a consequence of that, they are bottom-dwellers that favour deep-water slopes and canyons where ocean floor temperatures can be as low as 9° Celsius (49° Fahrenheit).

Tilefish Description and Behaviour

They are one of the typical benthic marine species that likes to dig burrows to live inside. These tunnels are often cone-shaped to gain maximum shelter against strong water currents and their natural predators in the wild - the shark phylum.

Tilefish also tend to congregate in small groups around deep outer reefs where sand, clay, coral rubble, and shell hash helps to create nutrient-rich environments.

Here's the thing:

They are one of the most exquisitely coloured of all marine fishes. Yet, tilefish actually get their funny fish names from the delicate scales that form golden mosaic patterns in many species.

Even though all have elongated, brightly coloured bodies (typically blue, green, and yellow) with a huge head, the males are noticeably bigger than the females.

One of the species, the chameleon sand tilefish (Hoplolatilus chlupatyi), has a remarkable ability to change colour in an instant in order to evade its predators.

Tilefish Size and Weight

Tilefish are not fast growers and one of the smallest is the skunk tilefish, measuring about twelve (12) centimetres long (5 inches).

Whereas, the golden tilefish is considered as being the biggest in the species. Fully grown adults can reach more than one (1) metre in total body length (3 feet) and weigh over 30 kilograms (66 pounds).

Interesting Fact: Even though most of the tilefish species are ocean dwellers, records show the blue blanquillo (Malacanthus latovittatus) will enter the brackish waters of the Goldie River (Uku-ora Creek) in Papua New Guinea.

Best Tilefish for Aquarium

Some expertise and specific conditions are required if you want to start keeping tilefish in an aquarium. You'll need a deep sandy bed, some secure rockwork, and a tight-fitting hood to prevent them from jumping out.

Even so, they don't like brightly lit environments, and you are going to need at least 50-gallon tank dimensions to accommodate most of the species.

Some experienced aquarists recommend the purple tilefish as being a good choice. They are vibrantly coloured, peaceful in nature, and generally exhibit reef-safe characteristics.

What Do Tilefish Eat?

Tilefish are carnivorous bottom-feeders that are somewhat opportunistic in their eating habits on the ocean floor.

Benthic invertebrates provide the main sources of food for tilefishes, such as crabs, shrimp, snails, segmented worms, and small fish.

They may also supplement their diurnal diet with other small bivalve mollusks, like clams and oysters, and some echinoderm species, especially sea cucumbers and sea urchins.

Fun Facts: Having a keen eyesight helps them catch prey that also lives in the dimly lit regions of deep canyons.

Types of Tilefish Species

How Do Tilefish Reproduce?

Sexual maturity in tilefishes usually occurs from the age of two (2) and they start spawning in the summer months as the water temperature rises. Thus, spawning is spread out over a longer season in the tropics.

Even though tilefish live in burrows on the seabed, they are pelagic spawners that release eggs and sperm into the open water.

But wait - there's more:

Fertilised eggs are buoyant, so they drift with other floating planktonic organisms until they hatch. But, after a few weeks, they develop enough to settle in a suitable location on the bottom.

This is when the juveniles start digging their burrows and transform from plankton-eating larvae to small fry with a benthic diet.

Tilefish Predators and Threats

The consistent digging and burrow maintenance conducted by tilefishes helps to provide deep shelters for smaller organisms, such as crabs and brittle stars.

Even so, they are a favourite food source for large predatory fish, especially bottom-dwelling sharks (e.g., sandbar sharks, spiny dogfish, and monkfish).

Sitting in the middle of the food web also means that other natural predators of tilefishes in the wild often includes groupers, snappers, marine mammals (e.g. dolphins), large octopuses, and even some seabirds (feeding on larvae and the most vulnerable juveniles).

Human-Related Threats to Tilefishes

It's fair to say overfishing and bycatch have an effect on a significant amount of sea wildlife and vulnerable marine species in the seas and oceans.

Tilefish are also targeted by commercial and recreational fisheries for seafood, especially in the United States and Japan.

Besides being caught "accidentally" in bottom longlines and trawls, other issues environmental include:

• Climate change (rising sea temperatures and ocean acidification)
• Pollution in the ocean (especially plastics and some heavy metals, which is why mercury consumption advisories exist for some tilefish species)
• Loss of natural habitats (trawling can disrupt the mud and sand slopes that they burrow in and destroy their shelters)

Pro Tip: An assessment released by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species shows that the conservation status of most tilefishes worldwide is of "Least Concern" (LC). However, data gathered in 2013 shows the Golden Tilefish (Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps) is "Endangered" (EN) with a "Decreasing" population trend.

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