Lyretail Anthias

[SMS76]

What ratio of Male and Female Lyretail Anthias i can keep in 72g bow? They will be the largest fish in the tank and i will have may be pair of clowns and another smaller fish.

Can i keep 1 male and 3 female? Any thoughts, suggetions? It will be a LPS & softy reef setup.

 

[raddogz]

One male and three females are fine.

 

[BrianD]

Check the older issues of Reef Keeping. I remember that Calfo did an article on anthias. Also, if you do a google search you will probably come across an old article by Scott Michael.

Both are must-reads.

Ah, I decided to do the legwork

Calfo

Michael

 

[SMS76]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7811494#post7811494 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BrianD
Check the older issues of Reef Keeping. I remember that Calfo did an article on anthias. Also, if you do a google search you will probably come across an old article by Scott Michael.

Both are must-reads.

Ah, I decided to do the legwork

Calfo

Michael

Thanks for the legwork, i will check them out.

 

[bigdee65]

A single male and 3 females will most likely do well for some time but after a while the females might be killed off one by one. The reason its better to have more females in a group is to spread out the aggression so when you have less females they take a pretty good beating from the male.

I have 1 male and 5 females right now in my 135 and the male is always keeping the females in place. I have one really small female that has not grown much and takes a lot of abuse from the male but still manages to get food and hang out on its own most of the time so I have not seen any problems yet with her.

Also in smaller groups Anthias don't tend to school together unless they feel threatened. But even if they don't school they are awesome and very active fish.

 

[SMS76]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7815827#post7815827 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bigdee65
A single male and 3 females will most likely do well for some time but after a while the females might be killed off one by one. The reason its better to have more females in a group is to spread out the aggression so when you have less females they take a pretty good beating from the male.

I have 1 male and 5 females right now in my 135 and the male is always keeping the females in place. I have one really small female that has not grown much and takes a lot of abuse from the male but still manages to get food and hang out on its own most of the time so I have not seen any problems yet with her.

Also in smaller groups Anthias don't tend to school together unless they feel threatened. But even if they don't school they are awesome and very active fish.

Good point, i also checked out Scott's and Calfo's articles and seems like 72G will be too small for the group of male and female. I created antoher thread to ask next questions but if i just have one anthias per type and mix three or four different types, will that work? IF so any suggetions on what type? Alsow will they get along? HEre is the link to another thread:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=7817237#post7817237