Matt Pedersen interviews Quality Marine’s Adam Mangino and Kevin Kohen. Photos courtesy Quality Marine
The QM Labs division of Los Angeles, California-based Quality Marine was excited to announce a worldwide-first aquaculture achievement on February 5th, 2026, when they revealed the first-ever success at propagating the highly coveted Gem Tang (Zebrasoma gemmatum). With QM Labs being established all the way back in 2018, the first Gem Tang broodstock added to the program pre-Pandemic, and QM Labs announcing their success with the related Purple Tang (Z. xanthurum) in 2022, it’s safe to say the success with breeding Gem Tangs has been a long time coming.
Historically, the Gem Tang has remained relatively rare in the aquarium trade and hobby. In the 2010s, the species initially saw very limited trade entry, with sporadic supply from Mauritius. In recent years, exports from Madagascar have helped ensure a more stable supply and consistent pricing, although retail prices for adult Gem Tangs currently range from $500 to $1,000 USD.
We spoke with Quality Marine’s Director of Marketing and Brand Development, Kevin Kohen, and Director of Purchasing, Husbandry, and Aquaculture, Adam Mangino, to gain critical insights into how they believe the aquaculture of the Gem Tang will reshape its role in the aquarium trade and hobby.
CORAL: Adam, explain your role at Quality Marine. You mentioned you have many roles within the organization.
Adam Mangino (AM): I’ve been with Quality Marine for 17 years. While I have a graduate degree and past work experience at ORA where I was heavily involved in aquaculture, I don’t get my hands wet when it comes to growing fish anymore. In my current capacity, I help lead the QM Labs division and strategize. I facilitate what they need, brainstorm, help overcome obstacles. I’m so proud of this team; they are great research scientists. Their background is in the Yellow Tang aquaculture breakthrough. Dean Kline and Renee Touse are the primary drivers behind the Gem Tang accomplishment at QM Labs’ Aquaculture facility, with live-feed support from David Miller and broodstock management from Morgan Johnson.
CORAL: Why did you set your sights on the Gem Tang?
AM: With our successes in breeding Purple Tangs (Zebrasoma xanthurum), I felt like the Gem Tang was a pretty logical next step for us. It’s a fish from a geographically isolated part of the world. Its distribution is limited, access is difficult, and getting them in the appropriate sizes for customers is challenging.
Madagascar currently produces the majority of Gem Tangs…that area is always difficult to get cargo out of. Shipments go through the Middle East and Turkey. Flights sometimes get cancelled, and the region is prone to cyclones. You can go without these fish for a period of time…there’s a finite number of Gem Tangs you can sell at 6 inches (15.2 cm). But at a small size, commercial production should be viable for this species.
With seasonal spawning, getting them at a small size is challenging. The goal is to commercialize the species at an appropriate size—around 1–3 inches (2.5–7.6 cm)—so it reaches customers as the fish they actually want: not an oversized Gem Tang, but a healthy juvenile already eating Nutramar foods and well adapted to aquarium life.
Kevin Kohen (KK): The typical customer doesn’t really understand how the fishery works. “I want a tiny Gem Tang”—it’s the middle of summer, they’re out of season. Tiny Gem Tangs are only available for 3–4 weeks before they size out. Having an aquacultured Gem Tang year-round will provide a stable, ongoing, right-sized product for the customer.
CORAL: With the retail price of a Gem Tang being much higher than typical bread-and-butter commonplace fishes, are there concerns about how many individual fish you can sell? Are there concerns about how this can impact a niche, local fishery?
KK: It’s a challenge for us to not shut off an entire fishery and devastate local fisheries. I believe we’ll achieve a balance with the Gem Tang. We can’t remove that one key species from that fishery; it doesn’t make sense. The goal of this project was never to replace wild supply—it’s to augment supply, to have the right size. So, the plan is to sell more Gem Tangs and expand.
You still need the sustainable fishery for adult fish and larger sizes to support the benefits it provides to local fishers and the region. It provides accessibility for ongoing genetics and broodstock as well. But we’re also expanding by providing a new size. I think it will expand the overall market for Gem Tangs.
Quality Marine is uniquely positioned in this—we support sustainable wild fisheries, while aquaculture is an emerging part of our business. It’s not like this for other companies. We need both, and we understand the importance of sustainable wild fisheries and aquaculture in the big picture. It’s the blend of both of those worlds that is unique to our business.
CORAL: What makes the QM Labs component distinctive in the industry, in your opinion?
KK: Chris Buerner, the President of Quality Marine, has invested millions of dollars into the Labs. I think it’s important that people understand the commitment to the program and project. We believe our go-forward strategy is to support sustainable wild harvest and augment it with aquaculture, ensuring a consistent supply of animals for consumers and stores. Many organizations don’t invest in infrastructure to support the supply of high-quality animals.
AM: You can see the commitment to doing things right, for example, in the equipment that we use. We’ve taken our years of experience in marine fish holding areas, which I think we’re industry leaders in, and we’ve applied that to some of the aquaculture tech that exists in the market and enhanced that where we can. It provides a robust system that allows us to spawn multiple species beyond what we’re discussing now, and we plan to continue expanding in that space.
CORAL: So what kind of quantities do you anticipate being able to produce?
AM: That’s a really fun question. Having worked with clownfish and understanding that model, what you find in the commercialization of a species is that at certain price points, you can move more volume. To maintain high production levels, you need to be able to move a consistent, reasonable volume, and the price point drives that. I think Purple Tangs are a pretty good example of commercializing a species like this. I still think we need more understanding to see exactly where that goes long term.
Additionally, these fish are all raised together, like clownfish. You’ll have better compatibility. I can’t imagine putting a bunch of adult-sized Gem Tangs together as a home aquarist, but with juvenile, aquacultured Gem Tangs, they’re going to be raised like the Purple Tangs in a community environment. There should be better tolerance for each other and overall compatibility, and at a commercial price point where it should be possible for future consumers to achieve shoaling, to put three or five Gem Tangs together in the same aquarium, much like they’d do right now with say Yellow or Purple Tangs (Z. flavescens or Z. xanthurum).
CORAL: Any final thoughts?
KK: It’s important to understand that we believe in what we sell. For example, we sell Tropic Marin salts. All of our fish are raised in Tropic Marin. Our Nutramar foods—we actually condition the adult Gem Tangs and grow the juveniles on Nutramar Pellets and Shots. We not only market and sell these products, but also develop and use them to grow fish for the market. So that’s the tie-in. We firmly believe the foods we sell under the Nutramar brand are the best available for conditioning and raising animals. It’s the classic “I’m not just the owner, I’m also a client.”
AM: It’s going to be really interesting to see what comes out of these fish as we get larger quantities. There is considerable variation in appearance among the juveniles, including different spotting patterns. I anticipate having some rather unique fish down the road.
CORAL: We can’t wait to see what comes next from Quality Marine and QM Labs. Thanks to you both.
