Lyretail Anthias - another one transitioning???

[BigAl07]

A few months ago I added an "established" (I'm now wondering if that's even a thing with them) group of Lyretail Anthias, 3 females and 1 male. Females are a pretty orangey color and the male was larger and a orange purple color. He ruled the roost and routinely maintained dominance putting the females where he wanted and making sure they knew who was the boss.

They've been model citizens for a couple months until early this week. I noticed one of the females acting fairly aggressive towards the male. Lots of Mouth fighting and "pushing" the around. Tonight I noticed the MALE is now spending most of "his" day ducking in and out of the rockwork and one of the females is now larger, changed color, and actively chasing the 2 remaining females around being a BOSS!

Is this normal for a female to suddenly get aggressive and transition over to MALE? Could this mean the male is old or sickly and on his way out and "she" is just doing nature and taking the reigns?

Do I just let nature take it's course and observe? I imagine if my assumption is correct, the NEW male will bully and ultimately being around the demise of the OLD male. . .

Ideas?

 

[cdemoss01]

A few months ago I added an "established" (I'm now wondering if that's even a thing with them) group of Lyretail Anthias, 3 females and 1 male. Females are a pretty orangey color and the male was larger and a orange purple color. He ruled the roost and routinely maintained dominance putting the females where he wanted and making sure they knew who was the boss.

They've been model citizens for a couple months until early this week. I noticed one of the females acting fairly aggressive towards the male. Lots of Mouth fighting and "pushing" the around. Tonight I noticed the MALE is now spending most of "his" day ducking in and out of the rockwork and one of the females is now larger, changed color, and actively chasing the 2 remaining females around being a BOSS!

Is this normal for a female to suddenly get aggressive and transition over to MALE? Could this mean the male is old or sickly and on his way out and "she" is just doing nature and taking the reigns?

Do I just let nature take it's course and observe? I imagine if my assumption is correct, the NEW male will bully and ultimately being around the demise of the OLD male. . .

Ideas?

I think it could be just nature... Any sings of the old male beginning to die out?

 

[BigAl07]

I think it could be just nature... Any sings of the old male beginning to die out?

Not as of today. They both have the same deep purpleish orange coloration and they both have the "Streamer" on their dorsal so both are def male.

Today they both seem fairly calm and cordial but late last night, after lights out, I heard splashing at the tank surface and the 2 males were not playing well together.

I'm hoping a natural pecking order will prevail or I may have to rehome one of the guys.....

 

[cdemoss01]

Not as of today. They both have the same deep purpleish orange coloration and they both have the "Streamer" on their dorsal so both are def male.

Today they both seem fairly calm and cordial but late last night, after lights out, I heard splashing at the tank surface and the 2 males were not playing well together.

I'm hoping a natural pecking order will prevail or I may have to rehome one of the guys.....

Interesting. If too much aggression then they will have to be seperated.

 

[BigAl07]

One month in and things are pretty much the same. One male is more aggressive than the other but nothing major. All seem to have "their place" with minimal face-to-face aggression and no visible harm. Everyone stays out and about during the day and into Hidy Holes each night.

 

[BigAl07]

As of today one of the "guys" has to go. The larger male has become very aggressive to the other male and other tank mates as well. During feeding he bullies everyone in the tank and won't even allow the smaller male to partake of feeding. I'm going to try and rehome him tomorrow to a friends tank.

 

[BigAl07]

So yesterday I finally made the decision to get a Fish Trap since apparently Lyretail Anthias are powered by LIGHTNING! Whew we tried catching one with 3 different nets for 2 hours. The ONLY things accomplished were:

Wet hardwood floors
4 very tired arms
Several coral "displaced" (aka broken pieces)
1 Lyretail Anthias very stressed, pale, yet still LIGHTNING fast.

I ended up making a Tank Divider (so we only had to deal with 1/3 of the tank space and inhabitants). The complication comes in when the BULLY sees the submissive male, he thinks about NOTHING except attacking that fish. So I have to make sure only the BULLY was in the trap section (which was very difficult because submissive male could slide through the divider and get back into the area with the BULLY, which seems dumb to me). So I had to catch submissive male, put him in a Breeding Net and then try to catch BULLY. Well Bully was ONLY interested in rejoining the rest of the tank and kept trying to push his body through the Egg-Crate openings. This went on for hours and he had nothing to do with the food in the trap. So I changed gears. I moved the Fish Trap onto the other side of the Egg-Crate tight against the Egg-Crate, and created a large opening at that very spot in the Egg-Crate. After about 2 minutes BULLY zipped through that newly made opening and WHAMO caught in the home-made Fish Trap.

Mr. Bully is now in a Breeding Net and submissive male is free to swim around and do as he wishes. It's amazing how that one "isolation" has created so much more peach and calmness in the tank.

Here's a picture of the Fish Trap in the tank "just waiting" on the submissive guy to get brave enough to grab a snack.

 

[BigAl07]

We moved the "new" Male Anthias a local reefer put him into his 180g Reef Tank with no other Anthias in the tank. As soon as he was introduced to the tank the foxface rabbitfish (Siganus vulpinus) and the Anthias instantly took to each other and are now inseparable tank mates.

 

[OrionN]

This happens to my group of anthias. The male spends all his time chase the females and dis not eat well, he gets weaker and one of the Female would take over harem and kill him. I put a group of 5 in my tank, it is the male that always died as the largest female change sex and take over the harem. You all know I feed my tank a lot, at least 8 times a day. The last anthias live a long time but I did not add any additional as the group slowly died one male at a time.