I've never been a big fan of anthias so I really dont know much about them. I cant seem to find the answers I seek in searches. If I want to keep a single anthias:
Will female turn to Male w/o females present?
Will males revert to female or lose color?
Will males of the more aggressive species be aggressive to non anthias?
Which species would be good candidates for keeping a single male based on looks, peacefulness(to non anthias) and difficulty of care?
If I wanted to add females later, would that be possible?
Thanks for the help
i've had a single female lyretail for about 7 months so my answers will pertain to that
1. mine hasn't. she has kind of developed a bit of a streamer, but she's still very much gold orange. my understanding is if kept alone they can either remain female, do weird things like develop a long streamer but no male colors, or turn full male.
2. i'm not sure, i've never researched it
3. yes they can be, females too. my lyretail basically ran my tank before i added a flame angel. now i'm not sure who runs the tank. fwiw my lfs has some stories about lyretails straight up attacking and killing other fish. i don't think this is common, but i trust his experience, so they're capable. i would think this is the exception rather than the rule, mine "ran my tank" but she was a nice chill leader. shut some fish down here or there, liked to go mess with the orchid dottyback, but nothing attacking or biting other fish sort of thing.
4. not really sure. bartletts seem to turn male easily, but i think they're aggressive on the lyretail level. this might be a double edged sword because my understanding is the smaller more peaceful anthias are going to be really scared if kept alone and might not eat aggressively, hence why people suggest keeping all anthias in decently sized groups. so the larger more aggressive ones might actually be the best fits if you want to keep them alone. bartletts, lyretails, squarebacks, bimacs, etc.
5. i don't see why not. i haven't tried and i really like my lyretail and i'd kick myself if i added some more females, she became a dude, and then the new females rose up and killed her. i'd be sad. the only issue i'd think would be you get a group of new anthias, one of that group might be working on turning male already, then you introduce to the established male and there could be issues, but that's the frustration of keeping anthias i think. can't we all just get along?!
another one to consider is the fathead sunburst anthias. i believe they're from deeper water and don't really school in the millions like other anthias, so they do well kept alone. very pretty and very peaceful from my understanding.
