Lyretail Anthias

[Mjhatley]

I have been keeping coral and fish for a while but am new to Anthias. I know that having two males is bad news bears and if you have two females one will turn into a male but is it ok to keep just one female or one male?

 

[User1]

You need more than two. Five to Seven is ideal but more better. These fish are aggressive in their hierarchy and the strongest will become the male chasing the others relentlessly to keep female. If you do not have enough of them to distribute the aggression they will hide and slowly starve to death.

 

[Haydn]

Yes you can keep one on it own in a tank with no problems dependent on other species of fish in the tank- they can be a little shy on their own if there are boisterous fish in the tank. A female may or may not change into a male without others of the same species in the tank.

 

[AmaleeC]

In my case, I have two and they get along really well. I bought a pair off of another reefer for $50. The male had already made the transformation to male at the time. Occasionally the male puts the female in her place with some “tag” but nothing extreme. They both eat like pigs and get along with everyone else in the tank (clown, wrasses, dottyback, etc.). My female and male either swim together or my female will stay out of the way. However, I have heard of cases where the male is so focused on mating that he never actually eats any food and eventually passes away. I got lucky, and you’re more than welcome to try a pair. But it’s better to be safe than sorry in this hobby so I’d advise you go with a larger group of you wanted to keep more than one. If you wanted to keep one by itself though, I imagine they’d be just fine on their own.

 

[Keepswiming]

I have two females for the past year and they are fine. It takes a long time for them to change into a male.

 

[9975]

I received 9 females about a month ago. The biggest started turning Male almost immediately with the dorsal fin elongating, getting darker, and fins turning black.

He picks on all of the other 8 pretty much non-stop for the most part but it's spread pretty even. You can definitely see the hierarchy throughout the group with the smallest always on edge.

With that said, if this were to ring true no matter how many lyretail are in the tank then the fewer "bodies" would increase the bully ratio. Mine are all getting bigger and look good but I don't think I'd want many fewer as the aggression could be too much.