Purple Queen Anthis Aggression

Lowefx · Jun 20, 2018

So i noticed something strange the past 2 days. I have 2 purple queen anthias and ive had them about a year in my 120g. Never had any issues with them. They eat everything. As you can tell by the pics, one is vibrant purple, the other is developing spots and is very light in color. Ive noticed the darker one nipping at the pale one, which explains why its not eating as much, its skittish, and hiding a lot.

Is this normal? Are they both males and fighting for dominance?

MIKE NY · Jun 20, 2018

Probably a dominance/ pecking order dispute with the winner possibly transitioning. I saw the same with mine. I kept a shoal
of them for over three years when the largest turned male and became aggressive not allowing the females out to eat. It was large enough to even try full size PE myiss and held its own in disputes with my Lyretails and Bartlett’s.

Lowefx · Jun 20, 2018

I wonder why mine dont have uellow through them. And its hard for me to sex them.

ca1ore · Jun 20, 2018

Lowefx said:
I wonder why mine dont have uellow through them. And its hard for me to sex them.

Because there are two different species that get commonly referred to as purple queen. Tuka has the yellow, Pascalus does not.

User1 · Jun 20, 2018

MIKE NY said:
Probably a dominance/ pecking order dispute with the winner possibly transitioning. I saw the same with mine. I kept a shoal
of them for over three years when the largest turned male and became aggressive not allowing the females out to eat. It was large enough to even try full size PE myiss and held its own in disputes with my Lyretails and Bartlett’s.

Sadly I just saw this with my Lyretails. The larger one started to become more and more aggressive not allowing the others to eat. They slowly starved to death. I could catch them and tried to spot feed in the area of rock they hid. Didn't help any. I was going to add another 8 or so to the 4 I already had but overall I didn't think the tank was mature enough with coral coverage on the rocks for better hiding and feeding cover. I doubt I will be purchasing anthias again.