I picked up the fish at the Air Canada Cargo depot at around 9:30am on Saturday. After a quick inspection I could see that the fish were swimming in their bags and the water was warm. J&L packed them perfectly.
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Acclimating 12 fish at once is not an easy task.
I setup a containment tank for the Anthias. I would have liked to do a full QT, but logistically this would have been difficult. With the intent of getting these Anthias to eat (4 or 5 times a day), it would have been difficult to keep the water stable in an isolated system. At least in the containment tank I could observe the fish and clean up any leftover food after each feeding.
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After releasing the fish into the containment tank, they schooled as a tight group in one corner. This was encouraging as no single fish went off on it's own. After about half an hour, they started exploring the tank.
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For the past week, I've been feeding a variety of food including Frozen Cyclop-eeze, Reef Nutrition Arcti-Pods and New Life Spectrum Pellets. My focus has been on the pellets as that is how I plan to keep them feed in the main tank.
Today they were moved to the main tank. There were a number of considerations here, but Anthias really need more space than a 30G holding tank. In order for them to feel at home, they need the rocks and the current.
You can see the two gobies on the left.
There are some interesting threads on RC that talk about female Batlett's changing into males (more frequently than in some other Anthia species). In the wild, there seems to be more males than females which is unusual for an Anthia species. In captivity, many people observe some or all of their females changing into males after which they occasionally fight until there is only one left. These considerations were not lost on me when making this purchase. I am hopeful that the ratio of males to females in my tank will remain in favor of the females. Having said that, I do expect at least one or two of the now females to change into males. It is entirely possible that this process started before introducing the fish to my tank and that it is now irreversible.
I do believe that my tank is big enough to support at least 2 or 3 males. Assuming no losses, this would result in a 1 - 3 ratio of males to females.
There are reasons why I believe I can achieve long term success with this group of fish, but I can really only hope I am right. No question they are a delicate species. Time will tell.
The other concern I have right now is in regards to flukes. There is absolutely no sign of any disease or stress, but I'm not sure that I could identify flukes if I were looking right at them? - I am considering treating the tank with PraziPro as a preventative measure. This would be the one advantage of starting with Dry Rock - there is nothing to kill. I haven't made this decision yet, but once the tank starts to mature, it will become difficult if not impossible to treat for flukes. While it would be purely preventative, I do have a rare window of opportunity. My research suggests that there is no residual effects from PraziPro that would impact the reef long term.