Lyretail Anthias Thoughts and Experiences

[lancemusic91]

Hey guys. This is my first thread on reef central. I recently set up my 220 gallon aquarium. I would like to get a school of maybe 5 to 8 lyretail anthias but just wanted any comments on there requirements or behavior that you may have experienced. Mainly -feeding regimen? schooling habits whether they spread throughout the tank or hold a tight school? any better anthias in your opinions? I also like the looks of the dispar anthias. Anyways thanks for any input in advance.

[falconut]

I currently have a single male. He's out all the time great fish. He wasn't too bad transitioning over to frozen food & eventually pellets. I seem to recall feeding him live brine & live blackworms for a seek before he started to accept frozen, pellets took a while longer.

I had a trio, 1 male w/2 females years ago in my 90. Each female kind of stayed in a corner and the male swam in the open. He did occasionally chase them. That time I believe the females took about a week & the male several weeks to accept frozen. A larger tank probably would have helped, plus having more females, maybe.

I typically only feed once a day & lyretails seem to be fine with it. On the weekends I sometimes feed a few times if I can. They're one of the easier anthias to keep & mine have never bothered any other fish.

[running scott]

Started out with 6 females. Very pretty active fish. The biggest, most aggressive turned male, he chased the females around constantly, stopped eating, then withered away. Every subsequent female that transitioned into a male acted the same way. Now I have one happy active female, and she’s beautiful.


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[this is me]

My advice to start a harem of all female. The strongest one become male. My mistake of adding my harem is that I added a male and 7 females. The females got bigger than the male and one of them became the dominant male and overthrown the smaller male. The smaller male does not allow to be in the harem.
Feed them good. They will eventually eat everything including seaweed. Once they thrive, the females will carry eggs and the male will dance around them and spawn.
Here's my harem.

[OrionN]

Originally Posted by running scott

Started out with 6 females. Very pretty active fish. The biggest, most aggressive turned male, he chased the females around constantly, stopped eating, then withered away. Every subsequent female that transitioned into a male acted the same way. Now I have one happy active female, and she’s beautiful.


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Same experience here. I feed twice a day. It is the male that withered away because all he want was to chase the female. Once the male died the largest female would change to male and he last a month to three and died. The rest of the fish in my 320 were fat and growing well. Just the Anthias. I ended up with 1 large female.

[lancemusic91]

Thanks guys. I had actually seen that on YouTube already "this is me." Very good quality. My plan was to do like you said and get 8 female and let one transition. I'd like to see the change plus females are cheaper. How long have you had your harem? I'd like to feed 1 to 2 times a day. Probably around 430 and 830. Stinks the males can't just be content being in charge but I guess if they don't they are over ruled.

[ca1ore]

Not my favorite anthias. Part of the Franzia sub genus and very aggressive. Needs a larger tank and frequent feedings otherwise your 6 becomes 5 and then 4 ...... They don't school, no fish does in a captive tank. Mostly they'll congregate at dawn and dusk but then spread out in the tank.

[StAiden]

I have to agree that of all the Anthias the lyretail are the biggest A holes. I kept a small harem for 5 years and found the male would chase any fish same size or smaller.
I now have Olive Anthias and Hutcherii, both behave better.
For Anthias in the pink colour range like lyretail, maybe Bartlett? They don’t get as big as lyretail, so this might not work for your tank.
Also agree, these fish don’t school.
I have had more success with Waitai Anthias schooling, but again, much smaller fish.

[carrots]

I started with a trio of three small female Bartletts from Divers Den. They came in very healthy and eating pellets on day one. After QT they went into a 125 gallon. For the first six months they swam in a group. As they got older their differences in growth became obvious. One stayed small while the other two were getting larger and transitioning into males. These two males would chase each other all day and in their spare time they would be chase the smaller female. Eventually the smaller male disappeared. Now the remaining pair are never far apart. When pressure from the male gets to be too much, the female will hide in the rock work for awhile. Almost every night the pair take claim to the center of the tank and spawn. When you see how the males never stop, you understand why they need to be fed so often. I feed my tank four X a day.

[Pericyte]

I like lyretails. They are cheap and easy, though I have never had problems with anthias. For the most part they shoal. I tend to mix up Anthias species, which seems to curb aggressions. Right now I have 5 lyretails, 2 Bartlett’s, 1 dispar and 1 carberryi in my 300. I feed 1.5 sheets of nori twice a day (they don’t directly eat, but will eat the broken off pieces) and mysis shrimp/cyclopeze once a day. Cyclopeze are great becaus all anthias love them. Good luck!!