Anthias color/gender change

[d3rryc]

About two months ago, I ordered three female lyretail anthias from Vivid. When they came in, I panicked a little because it looked as if all three had started transitioning to male, and I was worried about a turf war breaking out in my tank. I shot WetWebMedia a note and got an answer from Fenner himself. http://www.austinreefclub.com/public/style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif He said that, in his opinion, the three were all "more male," but to just give them time and they'd sort things out amongst themselves. Fortunately, there is clearly an "alpha" in the trio, and there is clearly an "omega" as well, so the scuffling has been minimal. All three were exactly the same orange color when they arrived. Well, the male's transition has gone into turbo over the last two weeks, with his height from dorsal to ventral deepening and his coloration really kicking in. The pics are a bit fuzzy because I'm not using an exactly stellar camera, but the differences in coloration show pretty well. I'm particularly fond of the blue/purple highlights that have developed along the edges of the male's dorsal and tail fins. His body coloration actually looks a bit "dirty" right now because he can't figure out what color he is at the moment, but I'm really looking forward to seeing where he ends up once the transition has completed.

[Kristy]

Awesome! We did this in our tank as well, added three female lyretails and let them sort it out. Fascinating process to observe... It took a lot longer for him to fully change to male coloration than I thought it would (about six months until fully male).

Now we are dealing with something pretty interesting with our group. I SWEAR that our male is turning back to female. Mike says I'm crazy (he says that a lot, though!) and he does not see what I see, but he's been accused of not being very observant on more than one occasion. The tiniest tips of our male's tail have definitely turned bright orange and he is very subtly reverting to that "dirty" appearance as if there is pink paint brushed on over an orange undercoat, much like you are referring to with yours, rather than just being bright fushcia pink like he was in the past. Several months ago we replaced an anthias in the bunch and now our "alpha" female is much more of a challenge to the male, so a coups may be in process. No noticeable change among the females though.

I think this stuff is absolutely amazing!

[d3rryc]

Kristy, you're one of the folks who convinced me to go ahead with a trio when I was researching a while back. ;) And you're right - it's been fascinating to watch. I'm curious to hear more about yours as time goes on. I've heard of such coups anecdotally, but never from someone who saw it first-hand.

[Kristy]

That's very cool to hear, especially since I don't remember the conversation ... must have been in some of my babbling about anthias? Or did we have a discussion by pm?

I love ours. We now have two trios (three lyretails and three Bartlett's) in our 210g and they are great to watch, always out swimming together. Except they are still upset with me that I did not get their photo into the schooling fish contest.

[corruption]

Do both trio's school together, or do they maintain independent groups?

-Justin

[Kristy]

They mix it up. The three bartlett's always seem to be schooling together and one or two lyretails will inevitably join in. Every now and then we'll see all six schooling together.

[phippsj]

I would LOVE to get some antias. Everything I have read says they are hard to keep. What are your thoughts?

[d3rryc]

It was a solid two weeks before I felt like mine were eating well, and the lyretails are supposed to be some of the easiest anthias. I threw the kitchen sink at them - daphnia, bloodworms, krill, mysis, cyclopeeze, glassworms, live brine, you name it. I think the cyclopeeze and glassworms turned the corner for me. Once they got used to the idea of pulling frozen foods out of the water column, their palates expanded, but I've still got one that only really seems to want plankton (Euphasia pacifica). I'm also supplementing with small amounts of pellets and freeze-dried mysis from an automated feeder throughout the day, with mixed results. The male has taken to it, and the middle female will play with it a little, but the omega female won't touch the stuff yet.

I think a lot of it comes down to how hard you're willing to work at it. I've never had anthias before, so I read everything I could find, I asked lots of questions, and I kept buying new foods until I found something that worked. In spite of that, there's always some luck involved. There are some fish that, regardless of the hobbyist's best efforts, simply refuse to eat in captivity. I'm quite grateful that I've still got all three of mine two months later. However, I'm still watching the omega female like a hawk, and I probably won't totally relax with her until she starts taking pellets regularly.

Do your homework, take a deep breath, cross your fingers, and go for it!

[Kristy]

Very well said, Derryc. The biggest challenge with anthias is definitely getting them to eat and feeding enough for them to thrive. It can take a great deal of diligence in the early weeks to get them "trained" to take prepared foods. Some types of anthias are more pre-disposed to trying prepared foods and others are notorious for starving to death in your tank. There are definitely some species of anthias that are better left on the reef.

Even then (with all the efforts at training them to accept the food), they have a higher metabolism than many fish and burn through the food quickly because they are very active and always out swimming in the water column (which is what makes them such great fish to have, wonderful to watch) so they need to be fed freqently.

I have just offered to write up a little discussion about my experiences with anthias and my reading / research on the subject for our MAAST newsletter... so be on the lookout for this in the next few weeks.