This is the first in a series of fish from snorkeling in Hawaii, namely Kahalu'u and Captain Cook. Rich and I love to snorkel and decided to catalogue the fish we have seen. The photos are not mine and the information is from Wikipedia.
The Convict Tang was the first fish I noticed when snorkeling because of their large numbers.
The manini (Acanthurus triostegus) is a small surgeonfish. It is about 5 inches (13 cm) long. It is whitish-yellow with zebra-like black stripes on its side. Its resemblance to a prisoner’s uniform gave it the nicknames of convict surgeonfish and convict tang. Manini is a favorite food fish found in shallow waters around the islands of Samoa and the Hawaiian islands. Like the alogo (Acanthurus lineatus), manini are surgeonfishes, because of the sharp blades by their tail fin. They do not use this weapon much.
Manini often swim in schools of thousands. There are two reasons why they have large schools. First, It helps them escape predators. When a large fish attacks a school, they scatter like an explosion. This move confuses the predator and the prey escape. Each manini has another chance at life if they stay with the group. Second, most use their schooling to trap food. They like to feed on thin algae which is fiercely guarded by alogo and damselfishes. Just the sight of manini get the alogo fired up. A single manini would not have a chance against these predators while a group can succeed. When the alogo chases one manini, the rest of them eat the alogo’s garden of algae
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