New lyretail anthias - half of them faded?

alex277 · Nov 18, 2022

I recently had 6 lyretail anthias shipped to me, they’ve been in the tank for a few days now. When I received them about half of them were a really rich orange color that you would expect, and half of them were a fairly faded orange color. This is still the case now, as seen in the picture attached, there is a pretty big color difference. I haven’t witnessed any aggression so far, and it seems all of them have taken to the mysis I’ve fed, 3 times per day. The faded ones a little bit skinnier, but seem to be eating, so I think they will put on some size. As far as I can tell they are all doing well and seem to be thriving. Is this normal for these guys to be faded? Is it from stress from shipping? If so would they still be a few days later? Will they color up as they eat more? Any thoughts would be appreciated!

MichaelReefer · Nov 18, 2022

It's probably from stress- I know foxface and tang can fade a lot when you first throw them in.

Lbrdsoxfan · Nov 18, 2022

Could be stress, could be sexing. Depends on the type of Anthias.

Edit: just reread they are lyretail, I'm leaning towards sexing.

ninjamyst · Nov 18, 2022

My guess is that they sent you some other anthias. Maybe lyretail from another region.

bobssecrtsn · Nov 18, 2022

just for my understanding, you do know you have 2 different species of anthias ?

alex277 · Nov 18, 2022

bobssecrtsn said:
just for my understanding, you do know you have 2 different species of anthias ?

I’m not 100% but I don’t feel like these are different. I’ve seen different regional variants of lyretails and the females all look roughly the same, the males look different though. Certainly not this big of a color change for females though