Lyretail Anthias from Live Aquaria today

Salt1972 · Nov 7, 2018

davocean said:
That's a bummer, but 4 is doable, hope the remaining do well.
So 3 new females and original male?
Post pics when you can.

The 5 anthias in QT arrived as 5 female, but the largest one had a notable 'spike' fin on top and over the 2 week period began turning more and more red and aggressive. I assume that one is now male or turning so. The single anthia that was in the tank is a small female. So, 3 female and 1 male. 3 are reasonably out and about - 1 is very shy.

davocean · Nov 7, 2018

Oh yeah that's right, you got a transitioning female.
Well at least you have an established male and enough females to spread around his keeping them in check.
New to display I'd expect some shyness, but at least you've got them eating and they will recognize that food right away in display and probably still be eager even now that other fish will be competing.
Looks like you keep chromis as well, this has been a good combo for me, mine tend to group together w/ my anthia, makes a nice mix of colors.
Good luck.
Once you get past this maybe a group of different anthia if your tank is big enough.

Salt1972 · Nov 7, 2018

davocean said:
Looks like you keep chromis as well, this has been a good combo for me, mine tend to group together w/ my anthia, makes a nice mix of colors.
Good luck.
Once you get past this maybe a group of different anthia if your tank is big enough.

We have about 10 Green Chromis and a pair of Ocellaris Clowns in addition to the 4 Anthias. The plan is to add a purple tang and maybe a lieutenant tang January-ish. The display is a 125g. We keep a fair amount of LPS - Duncans, Frogspawn, GSP, and torches. We have a few frags of SPS - Monti, Cyphastrea, Birdsnest... but we struggle a bit with the SPS.

davocean · Nov 7, 2018

Lieutenant/tennenti is one of my favorites, peaceful as tangs go, purples not so much usually.
I used to be more about tangs, but now days I'd rather keep those big grazers to a minimum just to avoid tickyness, and keep the fish that do better grouped together, and anthia fit the bill great for that.
Hopefully your purple plays well w/ others, but maybe keep an open mind to other anthia, it's kinda nice to have groups of more than one species

Salt1972 · Nov 7, 2018

davocean said:
Lieutenant/tennenti is one of my favorites, peaceful as tangs go, purples not so much usually.
I used to be more about tangs, but now days I'd rather keep those big grazers to a minimum just to avoid tickyness, and keep the fish that do better grouped together, and anthia fit the bill great for that.
Hopefully your purple plays well w/ others, but maybe keep an open mind to other anthia, it's kinda nice to have groups of more than one species

The other species of anthia are intriguing, but I'm reticent to commit to the feeding requirements. The lyretail are reported to be a bit hardier. We had a purple tang before our accident in April. He played very well with the green chromis and clowns. Hopefully, we'll get another with similar temperament. We need a tang or so... we've learned that our corals actually do a bit better if we raise the PO4 & NO3 a bit (.09 / 10 respectively) and those levels allow a bit of algae growth. Our purple used to keep the algae at bay. We're starting to see some brown hair algae now.

davocean · Nov 7, 2018

Gotcha, well I'd try to get both at same time, and try to get juvies if you can, they may adapt to each other better.
The lieutenant looks really cool in juvy colors if you can find one young.
One of mine as a juvy.

Salt1972 · Nov 9, 2018

davocean said:
Gotcha, well I'd try to get both at same time, and try to get juvies if you can, they may adapt to each other better.
The lieutenant looks really cool in juvy colors if you can find one young.
One of mine as a juvy.

How long does the Lieutenant remain with juvenile coloring? That's beautiful. I'm assuming they can coexist with a purple (Acan) because they're of varying species? If they're both small, could they quarantine together in a 20L?

davocean · Nov 9, 2018

Salt1972 said:
How long does the Lieutenant remain with juvenile coloring? That's beautiful. I'm assuming they can coexist with a purple (Acan) because they're of varying species? If they're both small, could they quarantine together in a 20L?

It may depend on age at purchase, mine was pretty small at about 2", and probably took about 6mo before the orange at shoulder started to change to 2 bars, and that was a pretty gradual change, maybe a year before it was 2 separate black bars as what we typically see.

20g, w/ a purple...really depends on purple and it's size, I'd probably prefer a 30-40g if it's any lengthy qt, but I suppose it can be done w/ a 20g

Salt1972 · Nov 10, 2018

OK... We're going to fix this ammonia in quarantine problem once and for all... I installed our old sump/filter system and protein skimmer on our quarantine system today so it can cycle before our next planned use in January. With Kessil lighting, a Sicce powerhead, a protein skimmer, and a full filter system with 20x turnover, we should be able to quarantine in style... and WITHOUT ammonia.