My attempt at Purple Queen Anthias

thats funny because mine all they eat is cyclopeeze and Nutra Mar and haven't touched anything larger like baby brine etc...and I mix alot of different foods together hoping they will, but so far they ignore anything larger.....

I mixed in some oyster eggs today and they ate those. I keep trying spirulina brine but its too big and they just watch it float by. The male and one of the females seems to be eating more aggressively than at first but the other female isnt eating really well. I also picked up some brine eggs today so I will hatch those and see if they like them. Im telling my kids their sea monkeys though. I also got an extra aqualifter pump so maybe I can try and rig something up this weekend if I get a chance.
 
sea monkeys...LOL...my guys are teenagers now and can care less about the tank.....I forgot to mention mine also eat rotifers....
 
Good luck with your purple queens. I had them actively eating nutramar ova/cyclospeeze and towards the end some were eating rods.

While I don't think they are impossible to keep they definately take a ton of constant feedings. The post from Matt on manhattan reefs is the best place to start.

While I tried 7 in my 180g 1 perished in shipping, 2 within days of receiving and kept 4 for close to 6 months. They never got fat, but never looked bad until 1 week when they all had deflated bellies and basically died one after the other overnight. I was feeding upwards of 4 times a day. I'm a firm believer now that if you aren't feeding 10+ small amounts daily they will never thrive in a tank. They may survive but barely. I hit the tipping point there of thriving vs living.

Now that you have them definately keep up with the baby brine. Nutrmar Ova was a big fan. I had to literally FLOOD my tank with cyclopseeze and they would eat it but I was paying the price a little bit with water quality and I'm using a fairly high end skimmer along with pellets.

I can say they are awesome fish and when they do come out to swim are amazing. With halides they tended to spend time hiding a lot as well, but would gather together throughout the day. I'm not sure if this was due to the lights or the fact they were tired because of the lack of food and they were conserving energy.

Good luck with yours and keep us posted.
 
Ryan, do you have any pics of your feeding setup. I would be really interested to see it.

no pics but they would nto be interesting anyways just a pic of a container and some tubing, i have a 3 chanel dosing pump with alk, cal for balling lite and baby brine on the third. The brine is loaded into container fresh daily and fed twice daily also with green water or plankton mix. The brine is then then fed to the tank via the dosing pump (4 times daily), i have these go into the vortech as tuka like feeding in current.

eheim auto feeder is just normal feeder also going into the vortech for same reasoning.

i notice the more i feed the better the colouration is, i kept tuka previously for 2 years with only 2 feeds daily and they did not maintain the vibrant colouration as this batch.

HTH
Ryan
 
They are eating mysis today. Pretty happy about that. I noticed if there is small food in there before the large stuff goes in they wont pay any attention but if you put just large stuff in they just grab it. Picky little suckers. I started a prazi treatment today. Hopefully they will keep progressing and maybe even eat pellets next.
 
I have a pic somewhere of my feeding setup - I will look for it. I found a small plastic insulated thermos thing, drilled into it and put a fitting that took airline tubing. I had a magnetic stirrer (used in lab settings) laying around and put that in there to keep the food suspended. I used one of the IV drip cinchers on the airline, and placed it above the tank and set it for a slow drip, and placed ice cubes, water and frozen cyclopeeze in the container. It worked as a sort of top off and would drip throughout the day. Let me know if you want any more details.
 
Hopefully they will keep progressing and maybe even eat pellets next.
Good to hear they are accepting mysis.. What brand of mysis are you using?

Also, give Reed Mariculture's new TDO (top dressed otohime) pellet a shot. They have 15 different size options. For P. tuka I think that the B-1, B-2, and C-1 sized pellets would be appropriate. I have found this pellet prompts an excellent feeding response from most wild collected planktivores.
 
Good to hear they are accepting mysis.. What brand of mysis are you using?

Also, give Reed Mariculture's new TDO (top dressed otohime) pellet a shot. They have 15 different size options. For P. tuka I think that the B-1, B-2, and C-1 sized pellets would be appropriate. I have found this pellet prompts an excellent feeding response from most wild collected planktivores.

Thanks for the tip, Ill check it out.
 
Update:

All three are in my display and doing great. The Male has began to eat pellets and is really getting more and more aggressive when I feed. He even comes to get food at the top of the water now. The females are eating mysis like champs and I hope they will also learn to eat pellets with time. I found a new Mysis at the LFS called mini Mysis by H2O life. The Tuka's really appreciated the smaller size of this food. I also bought some little tiny pellets (0.5 ml NLS) that seem to be promising. I continue to hatch live baby brine a couple times a week but Im hoping to phase out the frozen baby brine now that they are eating Mysis really well. I think the variety of foods available today really has helped me with this fish but the most important tool IMO is the use of a QT with these fish. By the time I got them to the display they were nice and fat, not scared of me, associated me with food, disease free, and not afraid to be under bright lighting. Ill try to get some pics up soon. Im the worst photographer ever so Im gonna see if I can get someone else to take some. LOL
 
My females are out all day and eat mysis really well. The male was eating pellets but got freaked by the gravel vac and hasn't came out lately. I guess its up to him now. I hope he comes out soon.
 
hunger will bring it back out when it sees all the others feeding....I haven't found the H20 mini mysis yet, but they do eat the smaller pieces of the PE mysis.
 
Have you tried grating frozen shrimp/scallop on a metal grater? Makes nice tiny pieces, perfect for anthias...

metal-grater.jpg
 
good idea..thanks..now I have to go get one because if I use the one in the kitchen my wife will kill me..LOL
 
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