How many people on here have and do keep anthias alive?

[naesco]

Yes, I recommend 5 female flasher wrasse along with two male flasher wrasse all of the same species.
The reason for the two males is that when they school together the males flash to impress the ladies.
You have to special order females in though as they are seldom carried by lfs

[justinl]

+1 on flasher wrasses. for some reason, i find people tend to overlook wrasses. I would also encourage you to look at Halichoeres species, especially H. chrysus. I think lyretails would be a very viable option for you as well since they generally do a lot better than true anthias species. on a side note, Im surprised that you have a pipefish in your display tank... wouldn't have thought they could compete with the active tankmates you have.

[tang daddy]

Thanks naesco and Justinl for the inputs on the flasher I'll have to look into that.

Justin the pipefish I'm quite suprised aswell cause generally they dislike lots of high flow.

I've had it for a year and the first few months thought it was a gonner as I never saw it. Up late one night I was like what the fart!!

It's alive, so from that point I made it a must to feed it from a metal planting tong. It would hide under the crevice and come up sniff the dangling mysis and then do a head nod and snap the mysis in half then after go for it's head and other remaining pieces.

It's about 7in long now when I got it was 4in and it's by far my most favourite fish no one is intrested in toughing him as he's so skinny and has razor sharp thorns on his chin, which tells me he's a male. I've tried a few times to catch him when the lights are off so I can relocate him into my sump with the other slow eaters however he's really fast swimmer so I'll let him be for abit.

[PzReefer]

I purchased 6 female and 1 male squammipinnis in November of 2007 all were eating fine but the smallest female did not eat anything and by the fifth week i was worried she would not make it as was basically a skin covered skeleton with eyes. Around this time my male was being more aggressive to all the females and paired up with second largest female. These two picked on my largest female and over night chewed the largest females tail to the base. So in the next few weeks the largest female hid and regrew her tail. The pair got much more aggressive towards each other and during the evening the male was wounded got an infection and died. Not three days later the 2nd largest female(the one that fought the male) started to darken and over the next five days transformed into the male coloration. After the first male died that small female started to eat and is now one of nicest females.The big female regrew all her tail back but it took about 5 months to completely regrow. Very strange set of events.

I have still got 6 females err!! 5 females and one shemale hahaha!
They are usually my last fish out after the lights go on, so I guess they like to sleep in.
My experience with tuka was that they are very shy and mine did not last long.

Most opinions on anthias say large deep tanks with plenty of shelter.

[tang daddy]

Thank you for the reply pz reefer and btw nice shot of your tank in your user tag I see a big efflo you should share a FTS in the 2009 post.

It seems that the larger tanks are able to keep lyretails no problem you for instance have kept yours for 1 year and another guy mike olson has kept his for 2 years so it can be done with a larger tank good feeding ethics and most important clean stable params.

[wickedfrags]

Good call. Despite their beauty, even my wife realizes it does not make sense to by these guys anymore.

Originally Posted by michika

I came to a similar conclusion, and thus, my tank was not ever populated by the beautiful 30+ harem I saw. Still they are beautiful, but they aren't intended for my system(s).

+1 on the wrasses. I have about 10-12 different species now in my display and I just love them. Father just bought a good camera - hopefully I will post some pics in the near future.

Originally Posted by naesco

Yes, I recommend 5 female flasher wrasse along with two male flasher wrasse all of the same species.
The reason for the two males is that when they school together the males flash to impress the ladies.
You have to special order females in though as they are seldom carried by lfs