Excuse my protracted essay! I always enjoyed writing.Thank you so much for this essay of a response lol. I really enjoyed the read. So one thing is, I know that you mentioned a Six Line Wrasse. I plan on keeping a flasher wrasse so I’m not sure if aggression would be a problem between the two. Another thing is don’t fox face get quite large for a 40b? They are amazing fish don’t get me wrong, but I feel like it would limit the amount/types of other fish I could have. What is the scientific name for the anthias you mentioned? I’d be interested is anthias if they wouldn’t get to large. Before reading this I was debating on either getting clowns or bangaii. If I do more small fish, I will probably go with the cardinals, but on the flip side, if I choose to have more bold fish then I will choose the clowns. Also I’m sorry that I forgot to mention that my tank will be a reef tank. I plan on having softies/gorgs but that could change. Thanks for all the help with this topic!
Here's a link to Anthias. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthias_anthias
There are so many varieties available. Mine are lyre tail and are indigenous to the Indian and Pacific oceans. The Pacific ones live amongst the great barrier reef on the north-eastern coast of Australia and also populate the Indian Ocean up near Coral Bay, Ningaloo Reef areas - even further north off Indonesian waters. They stay rather small (up to around 4 inches) and are extremely placid and easy to care for. I see so many types of Anthias that are available here. You really can't go wrong with these beauties.
With regard to Foxface, mine is 6.5 inches inches fully grown. They are pretty shy, so make sure you provide plenty of rockwork for them to hide in if they feel threatened. They are very placid and easy to care for, providing that you give them plenty of greens - mine eats meaty foods as well (brine shrimp, mysid etc) as does my Naso. Now, getting to their size, it's not hard to find small ones, so you could accommodate one until it starts to have trouble negotiating tight turns in a smaller tank. They don't seem to grow very fast - I got mine 18 months ago and he was 6 inches. So he grew another half an inch in that time. You shouldn't have any trouble trading one with another reefer once it starts to grow too large. Perhaps you might want to forget about getting one of you're worried that it might suffer from the confines of a smaller aquarium. It's your call.
Having said that, the Banggai Cardinal fish are a great addition to almost any aquarium. It you want a mated pair, sexing them can be very difficult. Here's my observations and advice: Male Banggais are ever so slightly smaller, but their 2nd dorsal fin is slightly longer than a female's - it can just about touch the top if its tail fin as it trails back, relaxed, while swimming. Another feature of the male Banggai is its unique mouth structure. Looking head-on at mine (photo in my above post) you can see the 2 parallel white lines under its mouth forming a pair of inverted "V's" (that never happens in the female). It's like that because he's carrying a lot of fry. Also you can see it has a much wider "bulldog" mouth geometry; that is so he can accommodate a full mouth of ever growing eggs/fry. Here's a head-on photo of my female. Note that the 2 parallel white lines below her mouth. That feature never changes. To add to the sexing difficulty, once the male releases his fry, his mouth notably reduces its size. Those 2 white parallel lines below his mouth lose those inverted "V's". It just disappears. I learned to differentiate the sex between my pair by carefully observing the patterns of white spots on their bodies. No two Banggais have the same pattern - they're like fingerprints! My male has a pattern that looks like the stars of the southern cross constellation, but my female's pattern is almost perfectly circular - they look a lot more like a white paint gun splatter! She's also slightly larger and her 2nd dorsal fin doesn't quite reach far enough back to touch her top tail fin. Watching them mate is interesting. They do a "dance". The female approaches the male and starts to quiver. He then moves close to her and starts to quiver in unison. The female then moves under a rock ledge and lays a large gelatinous glob or eggs. The male hovers over them and releases his sperm. Then he opens his enormous mouth and sucks in the entire ball. The whole ordeal lasts just a few minutes. He then hovers over an urchin and becomes protective of that area - both he and she will chase away other fish. He won't eat anything for 21 days. It's amazing. There are also "Pygama Cardinal fish" but I don't know much about them except that they are less expensive and a bit less appealing IMO.
About the photo:
Note the female (closer to the camera) and her 2 parallel lines below her mouth. Behind her is the male with a mouthful of eggs/fry, the parallel lines below his mouth are a now forming pair of inverted "V's".
Best regards
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