Lyretail Anthia in QT - Question on fighting

Zalick

My reef tanks my wallet
I have 3 lyretails currently in QT. The are in a 20L and have been in there 10 days. They are all females. Two are small and one is medium size. The medium one is changing to male and has the elongated spine but no color change. Its clearly the dominant one. For the first 8 days they had a hiearchy and were behaving normal and eating fine. Yesterday, the middle female in the chain seemed to be more afraid of the male and was staying hiding a bit but still eating. Just not as ravenously. Today, she did not eat. She looks healthy otherwise and her fins show the most minor of nipping.

I put a piece of gutter guard to separate her from the other two before I left for work. I'm going to see if she will eat this evening when I get home.

All three had been at my LFS for about 4 days before I got them. They were treated with copper there the whole time. They ate at the LFS and immediately upon putting them in QT. They ate every day since.


I'm pretty confident my tank has ich in it already although I've never had an outbreak. About a year or so ago I saw a white spot or two on one of my clowns. It went away after a week and I've never seen any white spots on any other fish. I just operate on the assumption that ich exists in there but everyone is healthy with strong immune systems to keep it in check. From all I've read it seems if ich is in your system, it stays forever unless you remove all fish and leave fallow.

I do not use the TTM for my QT. I just observe behavior and eating habits for 4 weeks. If they look sick, I treat. If they appear healthy, eating and behavior, then I put in DT.

My question to you all is: How great a risk would it be to put all three in the display after only two weeks of quarantine?

I know its a risk and the safe bet is to keep them in the QT for 4 weeks minimum for observation. I'm just curious if people have experience with lyretails and introducing disease to their DT?
 
Anthias are not particularly suceptible to things like ich, but can be carriers. I always keep mine in QT for a full 8 weeks.
 
Anthias are not particularly suceptible to things like ich, but can be carriers. I always keep mine in QT for a full 8 weeks.

Thanks! Do you think I should keep my little one separate for the full QT period or take out the gutter guard when it starts eating again?
 
I still have the one anthia seperated by gutter guard. I saw last night that her right pectoral fin is torn up a bit and she's not using it at all. This is day two of her not eating as well.

I've seen lots of fish with fin damage but I've never had one of my fish simply not use the fin as if it were a broken wing on a bird.

Is the not eating or broken fin anything I should worry about? She's swimming around and looks otherwise healthy. Normally I wouldn't be too concerned about two days of not eating but everything I've read on anthias is that they eat multiple times a day and need to be fed a lot.

Is this just a sign of stress from the fighting or something more serious that I should look at treating?

Thanks for the help!
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I had 3 anthias, i male and 2 females. They went through quarantine fine and were fine in the display for 3 weeks. Then behavior changed rapidly to exactly what you described.

That one female didn't make it. I didn't get another to replace it as the male and single female seem to be getting along fine.

I think the abuse from the male and the dominant female was too much.
 
I had 3 anthias, i male and 2 females. They went through quarantine fine and were fine in the display for 3 weeks. Then behavior changed rapidly to exactly what you described.

That one female didn't make it. I didn't get another to replace it as the male and single female seem to be getting along fine.

I think the abuse from the male and the dominant female was too much.

Looks like it had flukes. I just did a FW dip followed by 1/2 dose Prazipro. About 5-10 flukes dropped off during FW dip. Juvi male had a couple drop off after prazi.

Pic of fluke
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Looks like it had flukes. I just did a FW dip followed by 1/2 dose Prazipro. About 5-10 flukes dropped off during FW dip. Juvi male had a couple drop off after prazi.



Pic of fluke

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Wow. How's the fish doing now?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Wow. How's the fish doing now?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The other two are doing well. Did another 1/2 dose of prazi this morning. The sick one is not doing well at all. It was breathing heavily last night laying on its side in a piece of PVC. This morning it was breathing a bit slower but still on its side. I don't think it will live. :(

I'm now in the camp of prophetically treating all fish in QT with prazi and probably doing a FW dip to start off. Just not worthing risking all the fish in the DT.
 
Sorry to hear, hopefully the sick one makes it. I started with a trio of bartletts about 3 years ago and have had just one now for a while (The other two were bullied over time by the male.)

BTW, greetings from a fellow Portlander. :beer:
 
Sorry to hear, hopefully the sick one makes it. I started with a trio of bartletts about 3 years ago and have had just one now for a while (The other two were bullied over time by the male.)

BTW, greetings from a fellow Portlander. :beer:

Greeting Brian! Yeah, I'm hoping they pull through. I've never had a diseased fish in QT before and now I'm nervous to ever put them in the DT....
 
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