Lyretail aggression question

[coralkurd]

So I have a blue tang with a male Lyretail and female one. I noticed about a week ago that my blue tang was not eating and looked a little sick. I thought I would lose her. But after about a week she is doing a lot better and swimming and not skiddish anymore. Above all, she is eating again. Last night I noticed that the male Lyretail is not letting her get near any of the rock work and will push her and go after her. The blue doesn’t run away but doesn’t fight back. Is this normal? When do I separate? Will the hippo become his boss soon? Just need some help and thoughts. The male is a little longer then the hippo. Here is a picture of the two.

 

[hdsoftail1065]

Nice looking fish. Once that male loses interest in that hippo it focus more on the female anthias and chances are it will hound the devil out of her, I have 3 females to help keep the pressure down. When that little hippo gets tired of that male anthias all it will take is a swipe or two of its caudal spines to put that male anthias in its place. I have two hippos in mine and my male anthias will act tough and dart at them but knows its place. Both hippos are shy babies with new faces around.

 

[nereefpat]

What is the tank size?

 

[C. Eymann]

Add another female lyretail, should be keeping anthias in trios rather than pairs anyway.

 

[WMR]

Did you have the anthias before the tang? He could be acting territorial, that’s interesting because are more pelagic than rock dwelling. If it’s stressing the tang, isolate the male anthias for a week or two & that should do the trick or add more female anthias to diffuse the aggression unless you don’t have a big enough tank, good luck

 

[coralkurd]

What is the tank size?

75 gallon

Did you have the anthias before the tang? He could be acting territorial, that’s interesting because are more pelagic than rock dwelling. If it’s stressing the tang, isolate the male anthias for a week or two & that should do the trick or add more female anthias to diffuse the aggression unless you don’t have a big enough tank, good luck

I added the tang and both anthias at the same time. They were in the same tank at the lfs also.

 

[C. Eymann]

75 gallon



I added the tang and both anthias at the same time. They were in the same tank at the lfs also.

Sounds like the male is treating the tang like it's a challenging/transitioning female anthias. I really think adding another female will help, also how much and how often are you feeding these anthias? at least twice a day I hope?

 

[coralkurd]

Sounds like the male is treating the tang like it's a challenging/transitioning female anthias. I really think adding another female will help, also how much and how often are you feeding these anthias? at least twice a day I hope?

I am waiting for my lfs to get more females in so I can buy them.

Currently I feed once a day, but pretty big, in the evening when I get home from work. The lyretails refuse to eat pellets. I feed more often on weekends when I am home.

How can I feed more often throughout the day when I am gone? Is there automatic feeders that feed other things other then pellets? Or have any suggestions of Dry foods that they could eat? Currently it’s only frozen or live. I feed rods, lrs and live black worms.

 

[C. Eymann]

Anthias are pelagic fish, they eat tiny plankton out of the water column throughout the day in the wild, they have very small stomachs they cannot consume mass amounts of food at once, and do best if fed small amounts, twice or even more ideally three times a day. Feeding them correctly also seems to reduce aggression in the harem of anthias as well.

Start feeding them a mix of frozen cyclops, and very tiny pellets at the same time, New life spectrum are the ones I have the best luck with, esp if soaked in selcon, doing this will help transition them from frozen foods to pellets that can fed with a auto feeder.

 

[flagg37]

I wouldn’t worry too much. That hippo will outgrow that 75 gallon pretty soon anyway.