Bartlett's Anthias disappearance?

jessezm · Nov 30, 2018

Hey all - just looking for ideas/explanations... I brought home a trio of Bartlett's Anthias last week and they have all now completely disappeared. They had good color and were eating at the LFS, although they were smallish (about 2" to 2.25"). After introducing them to the tank, the largest remained in the open, while the two smaller fish were pretty shy. However by day two they were all out swimming together in the open. Nobody was picking on them (it's a peaceful tank), and they weren't picking on each other. I didn't see any signs of disease and they were all eating greedily frozen mysis, brine shrimp, and spectrum pellets. Then, one by one, they stopped appearing in the open. First one was missing, then the next day I didn't see the second one. Then the following one the last guy disappeared.

I haven't seen any evidence of any of them for 2 days now. Any ideas what might be going on? There are no fish in the overflow and I have a tight screen lid. I have some big hermits and a few emerald crabs but they've never bothered other fish in the past. I want to keep anthias in my tank (it's a 150g SPS dominant tank), but I don't want to keep sending them into a black hole!

I've successfully kept Bartletts before, but it's been a while. I feed twice a day, and more on the weekends and when I work from home.

Any thoughts?

davocean · Nov 30, 2018

My first thought is most bartletts turn male, so you are usually lucky if you end up w/ a pair, and usually just one will remain, so I would not get a trio of bartletts in particular.
Perhaps in a very large tank that may be another story, but this is usually the case.

Now this may not be your issue, could be a number of things, anthia are prone to disease and parasites above many other fish, it's one I strongly suggest QT for.
Hopefully it's nothing major like uronema which is fairly common in anthia.

Reefcowboy · Nov 30, 2018

Lol I had six at one point, and they all dissapeared one by one...none jumped, none found behind the tank, stand, overflow... vanished. That was it for me.

ca1ore · Nov 30, 2018

I think if you removed your rocks, you’d find a trio of corpses in various stages of decomp.

jessezm · Dec 1, 2018

Lol maybe so...

Peterski · Feb 17, 2022

I know this is an old topic.. Same thing just happened to me.. I had 4, and now I have one.. None jump, no threats from other fish. I was rescaping my frags and doing a water change ? Sucks.. did you end up finding yours or coming back from hiding ?