Smaller fish are mainly black with a white vertical bar which changes to a central blotch and becomes highly variable in form and extent.

It occurs from the northwestern coast of Australia and Christmas Island through the Indo-Australian Archipelago to Vanuatu and Tonga in the east.

[5] When Johann Jakob Kaup described the genus Centropyge in 1860 he named Cuvier’s H. tibicen as the type species.

[5] Centropyge tibicen is frequently found in the aquarium trade,[1] but does not tolerate Ionic copper medications very well.

It is recommended to use Ionic copper treatments only, or rather, a less harsh procedure such as the Hybrid Tank Transfer method.