randall's anthias

[Frankie1]

i recently purchased 4 randall's anthias. theya always hiding, very rarely see them other than hiding among the rock. i have seen them eat but they still are skinny. skinnier than when i bought them. does anyone have any experience with these? just wondering how long they will take to get accustomed to tank life. i have had them for about 4 weeks.

john

 

[Matt_Wandell]

Hey John, we have a shoal of ~12 of these in a 300 gallon tank. We got them as small females around 2 years ago and 2.5* have transitioned into males. (One has the male colors but is paler and less aggressive than the 2 dominant "super" males.) In general I would say they are moderately aggressive and moderately easy to keep, certainly not as easy/aggressive as squamipinnis/parvirostris but OTOH not nearly as difficult/wimpy as tuka/pascalus. We keep ours a bit cooler at 74-75 degrees, but I don't know if that is necessary or not.

I do remember they took a few weeks to really take to mysis, but they went after live enriched brine right away. Even now the females tend to hang out in caves a lot until feeding time, but are quite bold once food hits the water.

Are you keeping them with any fish that might be pestering them? How many times a day do you feed them, and with what?

 

[Frankie1]

do not really have any fish that pick on them. i have a lavender tang, mimic tang, and blueline/scribbled rabbitfish and i feed them once a day but my refug is on opposite lighting schedule and i do get copedods coming from there throughout the day.

john

 

[Matt_Wandell]

1) Large tangs and rabbitfish will keep them in hiding, at least initially, simply because they are large and moving.

2) You'll need to feed them more than once a day, regardless of your refugium size, if you expect them to get bigger. Randall's have big mouths and go after larger prey than copepods. If you want them fatter, three feeding times a day with mysis shrimp will help get them there. Mixing in very small bits of prawn/clam/krill will help to vary up their diet as well.