New Anthias not eating?

[TripleJ21]

Hello everyone,

I ordered 3 Dispar Anthias from LiveAquaria last week. They arrived on Tursday, and they spent a decent amount of the first two days swimming between rock fixtures and in the water column (at least way more often than normal for new fish in my experience). They did receive some bullying from two of my current tank members (Coral Beauty, Striped Squirrelfish), both of which are larger than them. On Saturday, they started to just lay in the sand. Now the trio have been spending all day in their cpot in the corner, never leaving the sand for any reason. I feed twice a day (tried frozen brine and mysis), but I have never noticed any of them eat a fair amount, just maybe one bite from one of the three.

The three do sometimes come out to swim, I am just worried about them not eating. Should I try live brine or maybe cyclop-eeze? Or is this normal, and I should just wait them out?

The other members of the tank are: 1 Filefish, 1 Photon Clown, 1 Squareback Anthias, 1 Yellow Tang

Thanks in advance

 

[ReefNomad]

It sounds like they're huddled for security with their backs to two walls and the sandbed below them. Anthias are shoaling fish, claiming rock structures for a colony. That explains their search between your rock stacks initially... I'm guessing the bullying has convinced them that the best spots are claimed, and now they're huddled in the safest spot they've found where they can all stick together.
You might try rearranging some of the structure, and catching the bullies out temporarily. If you can create new territories, and give the anthias time to claim one, then the bullies are the new fish being introduced rather than the anthias. That change in dynamic might solve the issue.

 

[TripleJ21]

I was thinking about trying that, I will probably do that tonight and see if that allows them to begin to eat! Thanks

 

[TripleJ21]

So I rearranged the rock last night, and the fish seem more active. However, they did not eat this morning still. They still look fine, just haven't witnessed them eating yet in the past 5 days

 

[ca1ore]

Best advice I can give is to QT all new fish. Not just for disease but to also give them the opportunity to get acclimated and used to the foods that you are feeding. It's asking a lot of new fish to recover both from shipping stress and the aggression from tank residents.

 

[tkeracer619]

Try ocean nutrition arcti-pods. My goto for anthias.

http://reefnutrition.com/arcti_pods.php