Have you kept Anthias Long Term?

tweeter · Aug 30, 2018

I have two lyretails in two different tanks. One is 6 yrs, the other is 5 yrs. I love them! They have lots of personality!

dbl · Aug 30, 2018

Now I'm nervous...I added three Ignitus' about three months ago. I'm hoping for long term success!

jp_75 · Aug 30, 2018

thinking about adding ignitus too!

Velcro · Aug 30, 2018

I acquired a trio from a friend. One of them turned into a male a few months later and was terrorizing everything in the tank including a full grown melanarus wrasse. Wrasses > anthias so bye Felicia.

davocean · Aug 30, 2018

Really varies depending on species, many are finicky, best is to qt and get eating w/out competition as most are skiddish new to tank.

Bartletts pretty much always turn male, I don't see much long term success for groups of those.

Lyretails have been really easy for me, carberryi's not too hard, just hard to keep vibrant colors, dispars I've also had long term.

Multiple feedings are a must w/ a varied diet for best results.

Males should have at least 2 or 3 or more females to spread the badgering around

skip0211 · Aug 30, 2018

I have a male Lyretail and 3 females for 18 months now... So far thriving and healthy.. feed pellets once a day with auto feeder and once a day fish eggs and frozen brine.. went on vacation for 8 days last week.. auto feed pellets and had a person come only 3 times during the 8 days to feed frozen brine shrimp.. everybody did great.. they are in a 265 gal SPS tank with only 3 other fish... love those guys.

reefready · Aug 31, 2018

I have kept Anthias for years. There is a definite pecking order. After quarantine I add the most timid species: evansi, tuka, flavoguttatus, ventralis, first; then carberryi, ignites,dispar, parvo, sunburst, and borbonious second -several days later; and days after : bimaculatus, bartlett, and lyretail last. Anthias do best in schools with a lot more females than males. They are carnivores with small mouths and like several feedings daily of small mysis,calamus, fish eggs, daphnia, and some will eat small flake food, freeze dried plankton, and pelleted food. They like oxygen rich water with good current. They appreciate low nitrate levels and I’ve enticed reticent Anthias with frozen daphnia and then mix with the daphnia small mysis and brine shrimp and other higher protein foods. Anthias can be more demanding to keep than some other fish but as long as you are proactive in meeting their needs , they can be kept for years.

Viking_Reefing · Aug 31, 2018

I’ve kept a male and a female lyretail for about a year. Feed once a day with either pellets, mysis or masstick.
Some light aggression from the male but nothing to worry about.

adtravels · Aug 31, 2018

I have 3 stockies and they are by far the best feeders I have ever had, anthias wise. They are bonkers though.

Ferrell · Aug 31, 2018

So not to hijack thread but I just got my 3, 1 m & 2 f, last week. In qt male lasted one day. Females are fat and sassy but now one has Popeyes. What is the treatments?

Had 3 tuka last month, two didn’t make it through 4 weeks qt, just one day gave up. Lasting went to the DT, lasted one week. Eating great and 4 times a day then just wasn’t there. Smh

Lasse · Aug 31, 2018

Sunburst normally no problems but it could be difficult to have more than one in a tank like mine (80 gallons) They are not schoolers in nature - what I understand - they often are seen in trios in the wild . The Sunburst in my present tank has been there for more than 1 year. I´m feeding once a day and only with frozen food like copepods and artemia.

Plectranthias inermis maybe not count into the anthias group by all but in my present aquaria - there are two that´s work very well together for nearly 1.5 years.

My experiences with these two species indicate that they can bee sensitive in the introduction phase but adapted in the DT - nema problema

Sincerely Lasse

mort · Aug 31, 2018

I have a single female lyretail thats a few years old at the moment and believe lots of the trouble with them is due to social dynamics. In the wild their groups number the hundreds or thousands, although smaller fluid sub groups of a dozen or so exist within this mass controlled by a male. With the near constant food source and vast numbers none are singled out for aggression but that changes in a tank setting no matter how big it is or how many you have. Since different anthias have different aggressive characteristics it can be hard to maintain groups even before you look into how poorly some ship or acclimate to aquarium life.

I've had good longterm success with disbar, lyretail and bartletts in the past. When I was in the shop we had a display with 29 bartletts and only lost one in the 3 years I was there and that jumped. I think the key to that was the high numbers but also the feeding as it was fed pretty much everytime I walked past.

ShadowR55 · Aug 31, 2018

Have had 4 Lyretails since November and they look fat and happy. I feed twice daily with an auto feeder and add a concoction of frozen food that I mixed and refroze maybe 1 or 2 times every other day. So 2-4 feeedings a day. Also have a very large pod population in my chaeto refugium.

64Ivy · Aug 31, 2018

Like Swoody in post #4, I too have a Borbonius doing exceedinly well. Mine is one of the Biota captive bred ones and has been with me for about 6 months now. Used to maintain several Bartlett's and Bicolors which lasted 3-4 years until they started going male and picking each other off. But this was many years ago when (I feel) fish generally came in healthier. Since then, any I've tried, save the Borbonius, never made it out of QT. Might try again or instead go with a handful of Chrysiptera damelfish.

eatbreakfast · Aug 31, 2018

When I had a 156g I had 12 dispar and a trio of bimacs for about 3yrs, then took the tank down to make room for a crib.

ReefTeacher · Aug 31, 2018

DarthSimon said:
Bet ya an Apex AFS could help with anthias

It is my experience that the life of an Apex AFS is shorter than the Anthias we are discussing!

Tft12 · Aug 31, 2018

I’ve had a pair of Lyretails for about 2.5 yrs that have been very easy to keep since the beginning. About 2.5 years ago I added a large mixed group of Carberryi and Resplendent Anthias to a system and all did well and gained weight for about 1 year then the group begin dwindling. I’m down to 5 Carberryi and 1 resplendent. I think the die off happened as they matured and the group of females became quite a few males. There’s 2 males now but they seem to get along most of the time.

Antics · Aug 31, 2018

My borbonius is probably my longest lived at 18 months. Two years ago I had 5 Bartlett anthias make it through quarantine. They were fine for 3 or 4 months but I lost 1 a month until they were gone. All ate fine, never noticed any aggression issues.

Craig Martin · Aug 31, 2018

I've had both successes and failures with Anthias. Over the past 25 years I had several square anthias live beyond a year or so with one making it four and a half years before a new introduction into the tank brought some type of bug into the system.

I currently have 3 Lyretail which have been in my system for 18 months and all look good... all though the male is not as "red" as he used to be when first acquired. They are a certainly a more delicate fish and I have no clear idea as to why my tank inhabitants manage to outlive my ineptitude. Just lucky I guess.