Purple Queen turning male

itachi

Member
So with all the failure with people keeping purple queens, i thought we would post some what a success , we have now kept this trio for about 3 months. We bought all 3 as females for fear of trying to acclimate a male, infact SDguy was with me when i got these and picked out the fish ( nice thick and healthy) . Tonight my wife ( shrimpchipgal ) noticed one of the females was turning male ... Here are some pictures of our trio. They are housed in a 120G shallow tank ( 48x30x20 ) with Hawaiian Longfin anthias, Aurulentus anthias , and an Achiles tang .

One thing i didn't notice before , males actually loose the yellow stripe across the back in addition to getting the elongated snout.

The trio together
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We will continue to document the progress on this, I am wondering how much longer it will take for it to turn full male.
 
I would show a picture of my pq. However, the last time I had a sighting was last week. I bought 3. I am sure they are food for my crabs/shrimps by now. PQ..
 
Maybe you should talk about your setup and feeding regime in more detail, so people don't think you just plopped a few PQ's in a tank and had success :)
 
These fish were picked out from over 100 fish ( peter talked me into it ) They were Quarantined in 40G for a month , during this time they went though prazi treatment. The QT setup was closer to a full setup, cycled sand , rock and lights . These fish did not begin eating for 2-3 days. They started off eating mostly the nutramar ova prawn eggs and did not touch daphna initially,( i believe this is due to the size of the food ). Once they were eating regularly, i believe 1 week after seriously trying to fatten them up. My wife was feeding them 6-10 times a day. We started a full prazi treatment on the QT system to rid any internal parasites and flukes. Me and my wife honestly had very little hope of these fish surviving past a month given the notorious history of these fish , ( I planned to blame peter all along for making me buy them). After the full treatment of the fish and water change , we left them in the QT system and began more regular feedings with regiment compared to our display and deep water systems feeding thoughout the day 3-6 times daily, normally we just thaw out food in the morning and every so often when we are home dump in food with or without the lights on. At three weeks in I started to change the water in the QT system with the system water that the fish would be residing in. ( the deep water system is tied to my frag system runs about 370G of water, 400lbs of LR ). At 1 month we acclimated these fish into the deepwater system. Initially for the first month or two, these fish were not out often at all, they would only come out to feed and would hide most of the day. I think this had to do with the other anthias in the system being cave dwellers and the Pq's not feeling safe enough to come out. When i added a 2inch Achilles , the PQ's began to be out more often and were much more active. During this time we have kept up the feeding regime and so far so good. These fish are not have thick as when we intially got them although they are still looking very healthy. I am very surprised for them to be alive at this point much less having one turning male. We feed a mixed diet of foods, generally small food (prawn eggs ,daphna , hikari mysis ( small ) ,cyclopees , time to time roe from the japanese market ) . Even this far in one of the Pq's still only eats the smallest of foods and is very very picky. I can't imagine these fish ever eating pellets.
 
itachi,
Great information and I wish you continued success. It's nice to hear a success story on these for a change. Please keep us posted.
 
for setup information which some have asked in pm
tank size is 48x30x20 peninsula
flow -> split return from a reeflo dart about 3x hr .
custom external wavebox (2 2x6055's ) controlled by an apex .. wave motion varies from large to small dependent on time of day.
total water volume 370G
water temp . 73-74F
lighting . 8 bulb T5 fixture , generally only 4 bulbs are on 2ATI blue plus , 2 UVL super actinics
inhabitants .
2 x juvenile Amphiprion latezonatus
1 x 2 inch acanthurus achilles
3 x pseudoanthias aurulentus
3 x pseudoanthias hawaiianese
3 x pseudanthias tuka
1 x Synchiropus splendidus var. ( maybe it has redfins, not sure if carries the same scientific name as a normal psychedelic mandarin )
3x maxima clams
Coral, almost entirely , LPS with ricordia mushrooms , couple montipora's
 
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Ha! I should charge you for the fine decor I'm loaning you :D

it's always nice to loan someone something and have it look better and larger when you get it back ;) I will say though , i can't believe how big it is now...
atleast 14x10 when it's open .
 
So with all the failure with people keeping purple queens, i thought we would post some what a success , we have now kept this trio for about 3 months. We bought all 3 as females for fear of trying to acclimate a male, infact SDguy was with me when i got these and picked out the fish ( nice thick and healthy) . Tonight my wife ( shrimpchipgal ) noticed one of the females was turning male ... Here are some pictures of our trio. They are housed in a 120G shallow tank ( 48x30x20 ) with Hawaiian Longfin anthias, Aurulentus anthias , and an Achiles tang .

Very nice work! You may find that they all start to turn into males. I have 7 males and 2 females about 3 years in my tank now...they all started as females. :lol2:

The next steps you may see is that the dorsal fin gets much bigger, the tail deveops filaments, the snout turns yellower, and they develop a dark red spot on their dorsal fin. The truly "super" males get yellowish "eyebrows" too. One of the first tell tale signs of the sex change is the snout gets pointy. Keep it up and post more details of how you do it!

This is one of my males. Photo by Rich Ross.
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Wow! These are truely beautiful fish.

A testiment to your great efforts. I think you on the west coast might have a slightly better chance of success then we do on the the east coast, as I've never seen a fat tuka in an LFS over here. Still, even with 3,000 less miles of travel and a stop off at a wholesalers tank, you're accomplishments are amazing!
 
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