Changing Lyretail Anthias

[ritter6788]

Anyone ever have this happen to them? I ordered 1 male and 2 female anthias from liveaquaria and they shorted me the 2 females and put them on back order. The male has been in my tank for almost 2 weeks now and is doing well and eating. They sent me the females today and it looks to me like one of the females is well on it's way to becoming a male. It's still orange colored but is larger and has a tall dorsal fin. So what is going to happen when I add these 2 "females" into the tank with the male that is already established? I can see this playing out a couple of different ways but I'm not sure, this is my first attempt at keeping anthias. Thanks for any help or sharing experiences.

 

[Yogre]

I had one established lyretail in my show tank, which I believed to be a female... at least it looked to be a female. I bought four more, all females, and quarantined them for 4 weeks. Apparently during that time one of the four started to turn male. When I added these four to the display tank, the changeling and the established anthias started fighting right away. It didn't end well, I'm afraid, as the established anthias was killed before I could remove her (at least I thought it was a her).

We may not always be able to tell when these fish are changing sex, but they sure can. If you have 2 male lyretails in your tank, don't be surprised if your tank becomes Thunderdome.

 

[ritter6788]

Thanks Yogre. I added the 2 new fish last night and the original male started bossing them around immediately. There wasn't any real bullying yet but the original male seemed to push the changing male to the side and was hovering over the female. Guess I'll wait and see what happens.