Finally a shoal of Anthias

[Rogger Castells]

I have tried live everything at this point!

 

[Brad Black]

OK-I am not the anthias police or anything, but here is my experice with Anthias (over the last year), for what it's worth. I have purchased 12 and 2 have died. A good way I have found with the finicky anthias dispar is to start them on something like frozen cyclopeeze (very small zooplankton particles mixed with live brine, flake and frozen mysis, add garlic and vitamins also such as selcon). Begin with the cyclopeez as it is close to what they tend to feed on in the wild, as I understand things. Then begin to add the other foods listed slowly into the mix. I have had a trying experience with the ones that I deal with in my QT (which is very important so they wont have as much competition to deal with in your display). Too much agressive competition for them it seems. Also I have had much better luck with groups of them as opposed to singles-and also males seem to eat better than females (and I havn't had any male-to-male fighting). They seem to feel more comfortable in groups and tend to eat more willingly. These fish are very nervous. They can be very severe jumpers. Mine sometimes have taken as much as 1 week in QT to begin feeding, and some never do well at all it seems (eating). Those that struggle to eat will seldom last IME. The good news is that once mine have been eating well in QT for about a month, when they hit the main display they are trained and ready to fight for food and eat aggressively with the rest of the population. Mine in the display eat whatever I put in the tank (5 of them so far), even a variety of flake. Just realize that if you move them out of QT too fast, they will not make it in the display most of the time. Take your time and allow them lots of time to learn how to eat in captivity, and they will do much better I find. Also on a side note, these fish are very skiddish and seem to have a very tough time aclimating to each new home, so expect at least a few days of poor feeding with the eachmove as well (even to the display). Don't worry though, as long as they had enough time to learn well in QT they usually will be ok in a few days, at least as far as eating is concerned. Water quality is another story. It seems that many asume that these fish require perfect water quality because they struggle so much in captivity. IME I think that they can be very hardy fish as long as they are eating well before they hit the display tank. If you don't have a QT I would not recommend Anthias. You can get them if you want, but if they immediatly enter the competitive display, you may be bummed that you spent $your money$ and lost a very pretty fish. You know how fish can be. Very frustrating at times. I think I spend as much time swearing at them for not eating as I do staring at them when the finally do. Gueass I'm hooked. Good luck.

 

[Brad Black]

Bye the way, does anyone here have any info/experience on captive breeding of Anthias? I seem to be doing better with more experience and I am very interested to see if we can tank raise them instead of toturing ourselves/fish from the wild. It would be a huge step forward to be able to get them spawning in captivity. Imagine the things we could do for Anthias in that way. I fell in love with these pretty critters a while ago and would love to see more people who feel the same way as I do have better success with them. Then again, they may never be a variety that we can tame. Drop me a link or whatever on breeding if anyone knows, whatever you have. Hit me. Thanks.

 

[Rogger Castells]

BB, Thanks for all the very usefull advice, I do not have much experience with sw captive breeding exept for seahorses and that pretty much took all the desire away!
Good luck in your search let us know what you come up with.

Thanks

Rogger

 

[Brad Black]

Thanks and I will. I started a thread last night on the fish breeding forum. All I got back so far was someone smartly telling me I need a swimming pool to do it , it has never been attempted and refered to a past thread about it. Of course the writer only had comments and left no link! Ah well, such is the nature of RC I guess...I'll post any research I find there and here if you wish to keep up with it, Have a good one...

 

[Rogger Castells]

Well, that is not true at all, in fact there is a few companies commercially breeding fishes e.g. ORA that are very successful at it. I know of a few of our members that has done it as well one of them is Martin Moe and the other member I am not sure of his name but I know he has a captive breeding little farm out of his house he mostly does dottybacks and clown for what I understands, it will just be a matter of time and patience before someone hits the potluck with Anthias