Lyretail Anthias, gender question

[VintageReefer]

I questioned the vendor if it was a female transitioning male and they said the colors vary slightly based on where they come from and they provided me this

 

[VintageReefer]

Because I’ve had lyretail in a past tank (a pair and they got along well) and also was expecting the purple color for the male

But the vendor told me (take it for what it’s worth) that these came from Indian Ocean and are a different color

 

[maroun.c]

Believe there are two variants, Sri Lanka abd Philippines where one gets a bit more white on the body.
I personally preferred the male.with the white body but for me it's the female with the bright orange and the purple on the face that's the most beautiful especially that most if not all males will loose some color in our tanks.

 

[Spare time]

*sex not gender
In animals what you are referring to is the sex

 

[Extremeengineer]

@VintageReefer Mine has had very little change, but perhaps it’s just been gradual, I’ll get a picture tomorrow to compare to my OP photo. I have noticed 2 darker spots on fins, I see some males get purple spots on fins, so perhaps this is early stages of that. No lengthening anymore of the dorsal spine.

I’m sure I could have put 3 or 5 in my 75g, but I didn’t want to devote that much of my stocking list to them. I was told one was better than 2, and that having one would be no problem. That has been true to this point. The ADHD at feedings annoys the Tomini and Coral Beauty, but they just dart for cover and then come back out, so it is what it is. At this point I have no reservations about having just one, and would do it again, although I would probably go with a smaller female now that I know more, the orange with electric blue stripe is why we bought this fish.

 

[Extremeengineer]

Having 1-2 will lead to male heavily punishing female all day. Having one alone will give you a not so nice looking male as female leads to better colors and display of the male in anthias.

So you seem to be saying if one has a single Anthias, it will always end up male? If so that is not something I’d ever seen mentioned. My understanding was that a single female, in the absence of any other anthias, would remain a female, as there would be no “trigger”.

In my reading it seems most transitioning males do so over a period of weeks in the presence of a female. Mine has had very little continued change over months, so it seems, at least to me, our fish is sort of quagmired in no man’s land so to speak. The removal of the fish from the presence of the 3 females it was with seems to have stopped, or greatly stagnated, the change.

 

[Tcook]

Ok.
1 Wild caught transitioning male
1 wild caught female that transitioned after captivity

A brief pause in anthias talk. This is a fantastic picture.