Stripey

Stripeys are curious and placid fish, making them very straightforward to approach if you maintain smooth, non-threatening movements. To experience their schooling behaviour at its best, find a steady position near a reef overhang, cavern entrance, or jetty pylon and allow the fish to establish their rhythm around you. Maintain immaculate neutral buoyancy to avoid brushing against barnacle-encrusted structures or delicate sessile growth on rocky ledges. For underwater photographers, stripeys present exceptional wide-angle and close-focus wide-angle opportunities: their bold, alternating yellow and black stripes reflect light crisply, so use twin strobes pulled wide on low power to prevent harsh specular highlights on their reflective silver scales. Frame the school against a dark cave mouth or toward the blue surface to emphasise their striking geometric contrast. Always avoid cornering schools in dead-end crevices.

The stripey can be encountered year-round across its subtropical and temperate range, but dive conditions often peak in specific seasonal windows. In Australia, diving around Sydney, Nelson Bay, and South West Rocks in New South Wales is optimal from February to June, when warm EAC (East Australian Current) eddies bring clear blue water, prolific marine life, and temperatures between 20°C and 24°C. Around Brisbane and Moreton Bay, the autumn months of March through May provide calm seas and excellent visibility. In Japan, the waters surrounding the Izu Peninsula and Okinawa are best dived between July and November, when water temperatures are mildest and aggregations under jetties and rocky walls are at their densest. Similarly, divers exploring Hawaii will find great visibility and settled conditions from May through September.

The stripey is primarily a shallow-water species inhabiting depths from the surface down to approximately 30 metres, though they are most abundantly encountered between 2 and 12 metres. They have a strong preference for rocky coastal reefs, exposed headlands, boulder slopes, tidal estuaries, protected harbours, and artificial structures including jetties, breakwaters, and shipwrecks. Unlike typical reef fish that require pristine coral structures, stripeys flourish around kelp-covered rocks and algae-encrusted pylons. The waters this animal calls home encompass the subtropical and warm temperate expanses of the Indo-Pacific, notably along the eastern and western coasts of Australia (from Queensland south to Victoria and Western Australia), the Hawaiian Archipelago, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and coastal Japan from Honshu to the Ryukyu Islands.

The stripey is an omnivorous grazer that feeds primarily on a diverse mixture of benthic algae and tiny invertebrates. Using its small, terminal mouth and specialized rows of fine, setiform (brush-like) teeth, *Microcanthus strigatus* constantly nibbles at the surfaces of submerged rocks, wharf pilings, and reef structures. Its dietary intake includes filamentous green and red algae, small benthic crustaceans such as amphipods, copepods, and isopods, as well as hydroids, bryozoans, and minuscule polychaete worms. Stripeys are diurnal feeders, maintaining steady grazing activity throughout daylight hours when visibility allows them to spot microscopic epifauna clinging to hard substrates. Schools often drift close to vertical walls and overhangs, methodically picking off organic detritus and drifting plankton suspended in the surge, contributing significantly to the control of algal turf growth across shallow rocky reefs.