Fighting Lyretail Anthias

[Johnson556]

Purchased three female and a male a month ago. For the past two weeks there’s only been one male and one female. Wouldn’t say they’re paired because they don’t stick side by side.

Yesterday I purchased two more females. One was bigger than all other females. Put them in the rank together and the male immediately went after the largest female. The others were bulliesd quite a bit as well but to to the point of torn fins. The male has never attacked other anthias like this before the addition of the other females.


The largest female is now hidden deep in the rocks. Do I have any options to make this work or am I about to have a trio in a weeks time.

Tank is 180 gallons

 

[User1]

My guess is you will be down to one before you know it. I started with 5 a few months back say around April. Everything was lovey dovey at first. Over the course of two weeks one became more dominate and would start chasing them singling one out here and there such that it would hide like what you are seeing. They need a lot of food very active always searching much like you would see if you ever hunted trout in a fast moving stream or river. My Lyretails would swim in open water then take up position behind a rock or ledge so it was less water movement then has food darted by it could dash out from behind the lower water column and strike at the food and dart back. Amazing to watch. But back to what you are seeing and what I did. The chasing would make the one hide. It would hide and hide and try to get food when it could but then got weaker and weaker then would perish. This happened with them all and I ended up with 1 which I have since removed back to the LFS.

Very pretty fish but I believe this issue was my fault for not having a mature enough system to begin with. 210 gallon tank with lots of live rock but the tank was still maturing. Had it been more established with corals to back up the rockwork I think it could have worked out. But what you are describing is what I saw first hand so nothing I'm going to be trying again for some time. But boy do they add a splash of speed and color.

 

[Johnson556]

Some how some way I’ve managed to catch the new females. I’m going to attemp to get the other female and male in my tank later on. My game plan is to leave them in a 20g tank together to get them in a new environment and used to being together.

In a week or two I’ll put them all back in the main display. Hopefully this works.

Worked with my 5 tangs

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I would NOT put them in a 20 gallon together. That is the equivelant of a cage match or the yard in prison. if you have only females in the 20 gallon.. you will have one male in about a week....it happens that fast.

I have 9 anthias in my 6' 280. Of course their is one male...as that is the way it works.

Give it a little time, the more females the better, it scatters the male aggression around. They will chill out..or at least they should. Of all the anthias the lyretails are the ones most likely to survive together in a tank.

 

[davocean]

Actually they absolutely should be placed in that 20g as a QT, and get them used to feeding w/out competition from other fish, this is best way for most anthia(And anthia being prone to uronema should always be QT'd)

Sometimes LFS sell females that are maybe a bit bigger than what you want, often in midtransition, I just experienced this myself ordering online and received all "females" that had dorsal spikes, meaning they were transitioning to male, but still pretty orange.

While I used to get all females and just let them work it out as to who would become male(advise given to me many years ago) I now no longer do that.
I like to have one much larger very established male, and a group of much smaller females, this has worked out much better for me in reducing risk of a female turning and challenging male.

 

[Kmsutows]

Always always always start with small females or at least just one larger female and the rest small. I never recommend buying a male anthia unless any female you get is significantly smaller. If there is a large female it can out compete the male and change to male which is exactly why your male went after it. I suggest either get rid of the male and let the females decide who changes sex or only have small females with him. It will not work introducing them all again. They are not like tangs.

 

[mistaflicksta]

Add more females. I had one large female that would bully the other two females. I added 3 more females and all of the aggression went away, they are now too many of them to bully so she gave up.

 

[davocean]

Add more females. I had one large female that would bully the other two females. I added 3 more females and all of the aggression went away, they are now too many of them to bully so she gave up.

Most likely what you saw was a transition period and display of dominance that may have calmed down some even w/out the add of new females, but the add of new females would have definitely spread the badgering around among the group.
That's why it's a good idea to have a decent harem for the male, if you only have 1 or 2 females they will receive the full brunt of his badgering, and many might not be able to handle it.

 

[cracker]

I'd but as many "small,juvenile "ones as possible . add them to the display all at once & hope for the best. imo 10 would be a good number or just 1 .

However that's out of my price range !

 

[Haydn]

There are a number of issues here-

Just because you add a male and a number of females there is no certainty that the females will accept the male as dominant, hence the male will need to be extra aggressive in order to try to get accepted. Meanwhile the females will be aggressive with each other to establish a dominance order. This may have caused the casualties.

You then added two new females to a group without an established dominant male, so again to try to establish himself he became extra aggressive and the new fish didn't know the tank well enough to remain hidden from him and of course his 'rival' for male dominance, the large female, was his primary target.

Additionally I found with Squammies it isn't as simple as male and females, I had a group of 22 all bought as small females, when they sorted themselves out I had 3 'breeding' males each held a territory with a number of females but I also had 4 non-breeding males (my wife called them 'males-in-waiting') they exhibited characteristics of both males and females. These males-in-waiting hung around in the tank, the breeding males chased them to stop them challenging. They constantly bickered among themselves so should an opportunity arise one would quickly become a breeding male.

Remember Squammies live in a dominance hierarchy, in which a individual keeps its place by dominating the fish below it and being dominating by those above. When you put a number of individuals together they will need to get the hierarchy sorted and the disputes can be pretty lively. The issue is in our tanks, no matter how large, a fish at best can only get 3'-4' away from an aggressor, maybe much less if it has a number of aggressors all vying for the top spots. In the ocean they can swim 50 yards away and try their luck in a different group.

 

[suta42]

^^^Really good summary.

Don’t keep lyretails, but have kept plenty of smaller species for a couple of years. To complicate things further don’t underestimate how quickly a dominant female can transition to male in the presence of other females only. After purchasing a small group of female P. cf aurulentus, within a week I had an aggressive female. Two weeks later I had a fish in full male colours that had experienced an enormous growth spurt at the time. To complicate things further, the largest female isn’t always the most aggressive either during this initial period of establishing hierarchy!!!

Don’t know if lyretails are like this, but something to consider if you keep the new females in a small QT.

Hope that helps.

 

[Johnson556]

That’s a lot to take in, well I just got home and noticed the largest female is dead. Didn’t think the male did too much of a number on her...I was very wrong.

I really like these fish, I wish I put ten females in from the get go and let them figure things out. Hopefully this trio I have now works

 

[steve bergmann]

I have had Lyretails for quite a while now. My first suggestion is have a nice sized refugium which will constantly feed them. I also have a harem of Flame Angels which spawn every night that also feeds them and have a APEX Feeder which feeds them 5 times a day. The more you feed them the less aggressive they will be but they will establish the pecking order no matter what you do. I would add only females and let the largest one turn to a male, they do turn quickly like a about a week. Here is a video of my tank back in June. I currently have 15 Anthias in it, 11 Lyretail and 4 Dispars. Back in June I only had 7 Leyretails. They are such a cool fish I had to get more. My tank struggles to keep Nitrates so I got some more to help feed the corals, at least that is the theory.

 

[steve bergmann]

Here is a video from my tank tonight as the lights went down:

 

[maroun.c]

As mentioned above either a not aggressive enough male to put the females into positions or possibly some transitioning females. not easy to deal with.
I added 9 tiny females in one go years back and one quickly transitioned and all was fine for couple years till the male was sucked in my return pipe after return pump was turned off (nasty and painful death) took him 5-6 days to die and I couldn't catch him in the tank. in the mean time I could see the change int eh hirearchy and the females fighting as male was hiding in rocks not able to swim. within couple days I could see transition singns on 2 of them and within two weeks one was already male and was killed shortly after for the second female in transition to take over as dominant male since then.

 

[Haydn]

…….The more you feed them the less aggressive they will be...………..

I am afraid that is not correct, female Squammies live in a hierarchical society, their aggression is driven not by food but position in that society, therefore the amount of food available to them is irrelevant. However, as the group settles and each individual gets to knows it's place the aggression will subside. Until, of course, something within the group changes (the death of an individual, addition of new fish, etc.) then there may be a realignment within the group and clashes.

Your video is excellent and proves my point- instead of looking at the group as a whole focus on one female and follow it, each female 'lives' in a small three dimensional bubble, as they get close to another female, they will give way to the more dominant ones and the subdominant will give way to them. You may need to watch it a few times but it is there.

 

[davocean]

I really don't think lyretails are difficult to keep at all.

I think the issue many have is buying them all too close in size, it's too easy to have a female catch up in size and challenge the male.

I used to buy all females and let them work it out long ago and I'd always end up w/ a submale or 2, and in time challenges.

Ever since I started buying one large male and at least 3-4 or more much smaller females I've not had issues.

 

[Powderclownanthias]

I would NOT put them in a 20 gallon together. That is the equivelant of a cage match or the yard in prison. if you have only females in the 20 gallon.. you will have one male in about a week....it happens that fast.

I have 9 anthias in my 6' 280. Of course their is one male...as that is the way it works.

Give it a little time, the more females the better, it scatters the male aggression around. They will chill out..or at least they should. Of all the anthias the lyretails are the ones most likely to survive together in a tank.

I have 4 males , 2 sub and 7 females but male are attacking females and not male against male , it is not like an agression but something like a short persecution like saying im the boss here , i dont know if its normal or agression but usually when this happens it comes my powder blue tang to calm stuff down .....

 

[mnreefer327]

Always always always start with small females or at least just one larger female and the rest small. I never recommend buying a male anthia unless any female you get is significantly smaller. If there is a large female it can out compete the male and change to male which is exactly why your male went after it. I suggest either get rid of the male and let the females decide who changes sex or only have small females with him. It will not work introducing them all again. They are not like tangs.

I agree with this. If there is any way to return the larger females and buy smaller ones, I'd do it. The larger female could be in transition (switching to male), so that could be the cause of the fighting.