My new anthias!!!

SDguy · Nov 12, 2009

I've got a couple males. They fight on occasion, even locking mouths before; but never any damage.

I'm honestly not quite sure how the color works with this species. If you look at the fishbase images, it looks like this is defintely a male, and looks like what you have as well as what mine look like:

But then this is listed as a male too

And not sure what to think of LiveAquaria's pic either:

SDguy · Nov 12, 2009

Here's mine, sorry for the over-exposed pics... the only way I could get them in focus...fast little buggers! The tail edges turn bright blue when they flash, the red front of the dorsal turns really bright red, and the weird orange spot on the flank gets more intense.

seafansar · Nov 12, 2009

Why do they have to be so confusing?! I wonder if the ones in the second picture are a different species or subspecies or a rare color morph? Or maybe they have to be male for X amount of time before changing.

How long have you had yours? I've only seen mine lock mouths once, but it looked to be on accident. They both went for the same piece of food and got their mouths stuck together. lol. I can tell three of them are females. They are smaller and don't have trailers at all.

seafansar · Nov 12, 2009

Yep, that's what my males look like. I've noticed that orange spot turning red when they start fighting too.

SDguy · Nov 12, 2009

seafansar said:
Why do they have to be so confusing?! I wonder if the ones in the second picture are a different species or subspecies or a rare color morph? Or maybe they have to be male for X amount of time before changing.

How long have you had yours? I've only seen mine lock mouths once, but it looked to be on accident. They both went for the same piece of food and got their mouths stuck together. lol. I can tell three of them are females. They are smaller and don't have trailers at all.

I've had mine for over a year. They were in a FOWLR tank as a trio, and I added two more to make 5. Three "turned" male (not that I'm entirely sure they were female to begin with). Marine velvet then wiped out most of that tank, including three of the carberryi. Eventually I placed the two lone males in my reef. I'd love to get females, but I have never seen any for sale locally. Mine all had approximately the same color scheme from day one. Nothing like that diagonal pink/yellow separation. The "terminal" males would just be noticeable due to flashing, and the elongated fins.

Quality Marine a had a pant load of them in their display tank at RAP... some even had the pink/yellow diagonal color scheme... but I still couldn't make heads or tails of it.