lyretail anthias suck

[davocean]

Frequent feedings usually result in better color and health overall, I've never noticed a change in behavior due to more or less feeding.
As for male color change, it should be quite obvious, I've seen a female orange one day, then next day male/purple, maybe a dullish dusty purple at first but still very obvious.
I have seen submales develop the spike, but not change color, this was while there was already a male in tank though.

 

[kupadupapupa]

How do you know it is the male if he didn't change colors?
Do you have a pic maybe they are not lyretails.. Some other species of anthias have less subtle differences. With lyretals there is a pretty big difference. Without a female the males sometimes will look more femal than male but it is rare.

This picture is fairly old but as of now one of them got much bigger and has the long spike on the top.

 

[davocean]

Mine did the same thing, submale stayed this way for probably a year, here you can see a very obvious spike but no color change.

 

[kupadupapupa]

Mine did the same thing, submale stayed this way for probably a year, here you can see a very obvious spike but no color change.

That's exactly what mine looks like now too. I really wanted it to change to a nice people color.

 

[davocean]

The color change will vary depending on the region they are collected, my male is from fiji, so it's purple.
We get S African lyretails here that turn more red when male.
Right now I have a fiji male, and S African females, as the females have that blue line that seems prettier to me, but I'm hoping none of them ever challenge my existing male because I want the purple more than red in the male.

 

[davocean]

This is a recent vid of my new tank and my present grouping

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiMZmj54qgA

 

[kupadupapupa]

Is it possible to add anthias to established anthias in the tank? Or will the current male kill it?

 

[davocean]

As long as you add females or male of different species and their females you should be fine, in fact if you only have one female and one male it would do your female good to have a couple other females in there, then males focus won't be solely on her

 

[kupadupapupa]

As long as you add females or male of different species and their females you should be fine, in fact if you only have one female and one male it would do your female good to have a couple other females in there, then males focus won't be solely on her

Ok cool.