My attempt at Purple Queen Anthias

Thanks for the idea, Peter. I will also have to try it. I need to make some more food anyway. Maybe this weekend Ill do that. Im hoping my male will come back out but its not looking so good. Its been a couple days now, what do you do though? Im not gonna go digging and make him more scared. I guess its up to him now. The females dont eat as well as he did but their not scared either.
 
My record with purple queens is 9 months. The ones I had loved salmon roe (that orange stuff you find on sushi).

Would have had them longer, but I picked up an aggressive royal gramma and they never came out to eat after that. *Sigh*

That was 4 years ago. I'm definitely going to give it another go when I set up my new tank.

GL with yours!
 
The ones I had loved salmon roe (that orange stuff you find on sushi).
Usually they use Capelin (Mallotus vilolsus) roe or "masago" as it's commonly called for sushi. Naturally it has a golden yellow color, but masago is died a bright red color for visual appeal.
My fishes love Capelin roe. It prompts a great response and is the perfect size for most small to medium sized planktivores in my experience.
 
Oops. You're right! I mean capelin roe. Easy to pick up a decent frozen container of it for about 5 bucks at asian supermarkets and it'll last me a month. I usually soak it in selcon and garlic.
 
UPDATE:
The two females continue to thrive and are eating NLS pellets three times a day on an auto feeder and frozen once or twice a day. The male hides under the rocks still and only comes out once in a while, I dont imagine he will last much longer. Hopefully the females will continue to thrive.
 
I saw a purple queen anthias for the first time at my lfs last weekend. The owner of it said that it won't eat anything, including frozen baby brine shirmp :( Sad thing was that someone was going to buy it in addition to the five other fish they bought... It looked beautiful though! Glad to see that yours are doing well. Hopefully your male starts coming out of hiding! Wasn't he eating pellets?
 
This issue with the male started when I vacuumed the sand and he got scared and never came out for any length of time since. He was out for a few minutes today but then hid when he saw me.
 
Interesting thing that he got scared of the gravel vac... My experience in both fresh & saltwater fish is that they attack the thing! I wouldn't use the vac again until he comes out more if he does. Just what I would try not sure how much detritus your sand bed gets, but I can go for a month or so with out a substrate cleaning...
 
Its funny cause the females hide too but when im done they'll come right back out. The male acts like hes been scared for life. I think the only reason hes still alive is that he knows when the auto feeder goes off and comes out for it.
 
mine were scared of the vac too at first and hide in the rocks with some of the other newer anthias and fish, but the older ones still swam around which I believe helped coax them out....now they are used to it and stay out. BTW my male is taking PE mysis now, but the female still just takes smaller stuff...
 
Eric, the male never got brave enough to have a chance and one of the females slowly lost weight until she was gone one day. The third one was a solid amazing fish that grew to eat really well and was nice and fat, unfortunately I lost her along with half my fish for slacking on my QT practices. It's not entirely impossible but they take a lot of conditioning and love. I think of I try another group I'll keep them in QT for a long time and see just how fat I can get them.

I think Mike is back at it with them, maybe he'll give us a little update.
 
I lost my first pair after about ten months and now my second pair I got last May/June. The pair were larger this time with the male around 4" and the female about 3". The female never really aclimated to eating anything larger than NutraMar or cyclopeez and I lost her this week, but the male is doing great. It eats almost everything even trying PE mysis and flakes. It really has colored up and is starting to get beautiful yellow streamers.... Eric anytime you want to stop..here is a pic of the male..it's a much deeper purple in person
IMG_3136_zpsfb151005.jpg
 
Mike and Brett any more tries or updates to this fish? i am very interested but for what i have been reading is that they dont have a good survival rate. any info will be great.
 
No I haven't seen any that I would attempt. If I ever see some large females in good shape ill pounce on them. None of the stores around me ever carry them anymore and it's. to a fish I want to ship.
 
13 months later ..I still have him and doing well. He even fights back against some of the more aggressive Anthias like my Bartletts and Lyretails.
 
Just wanted to chime in on this thread. I bought three Purple queen anthias about 6 months ago before I knew anything about them, was convinced after reading up on them when I got home (and yes, I have been doing this long enough to know better, shame on me) that they were doomed, but I was able to get them on Cyclopeeze in QT. I did notice that they preferred the whiter particles of food and would ignore the brightest red ones. It turns out that I also bought 3 males.

I also have 5 dispar anthias and all 8 of them school together. As of now the purple queens accept both frozen and freeze dried mysis (both PE and Hikari brand), brine shrimp, diced scallop, and Pacifica Plankton. They've not lost any weight, but they've never plumped up like the rest of my fish. Unfortunately I haven't been able to convince them to eat any kind of pellet, which are fed to the tank via an auto-feeder every morning. Does anyone have any tips? I have to go out of town for a couple of weeks in October and I'm not sure I can get someone in to feed them frozen foods every day.
 
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