My amazing tranny lyretail anthias!!!

sufunk · #1 01/09/2008, 11:44 AM

About 6-8 months ago i bought 4 female and 1 male lyretail anthias from liveaquaria for my 180g. All was fine until at least Sunday night. Sunday night while feeding them my wife and i talked about how the tank was almost 1 year old and we hadnt lost a single fish yet. All lyretails were definitely in the tank eating and looking good sunday night at about 8pm.

Monday when i fed them i couldnt find the male lyretail but didnt think much about it. Tuesday afternoon he was still nowhere to be found so i checked the overflows and tank but couldnt find him. My brittle star was curled up under the rocks with something so i assumed the male had died and the star was eating the body.

Late tuesday night before the lights went out, my wife yells that she found the male. I go to the tank and look and presto there he is

A closer look and count showed that there were now only 3 female and this "male". Looking at "him" it was clear he was 1 of my females turning into a male. "she" is already about 65% red and had the large spike on her top fin already!

I knew that a female would turn into a male to take his place but i was AMAZED how fast it happened. At absolute most, the male had been dead for 48 hours and maybe only about 36 hours and already you can barely tell that this new "male" used to be a female a few days ago. The spike on the fin literally grew overnight!

Maybe it was just me, but i found it AMAZING that this could happen this fast!!

AquaKnight407 · #2 01/09/2008, 01:06 PM

Any tangs in there that could possibly have done the surgery?

sufunk · #3 01/09/2008, 01:17 PM

Lol, i have 3 tangs in there: blue hippo, orange shoulder and a tennenti. They have all been together for awhile except for the hippo which i added a few months ago. I've never seen any of my fish fighting or bullying each other except for the hippo and tennenti for a few days when i first added the hippo.

I was wondering if i should add another anthias but since this one morphed so fast, i'll probably just leave them as they are unless i happen to find a female lyretail floating around locally.

The color changing so quickly, i can see but i am really amazed at how fast "he" grew the spike on his fin. She apparently instantly knew the male was dead and started turning. I had never read up on it but i assumed that the change would take at least a few weeks and figured it might never happen.

Dakota Reef · #4 01/09/2008, 01:20 PM

What are the chances that the "new" male had begun to change over earlier but it was so subtle you hadn't noticed it yet. The original male though, certainly would have noticed the changes which may have caused increased aggression between the two contributing to the demise the older male. The transformation already underway now begins to speed up even more, what with his newfound dominance causing his hormones to rage unabated.

Cause of death: It wasn't natural causes......it was murder!!

Sorry, I couldn't resist when I saw you were an attorney. Love the Boy's trophies. Go Opie Romo!!

sufunk · #5 01/09/2008, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dakota Reef
What are the chances that the "new" male had begun to change over earlier but it was so subtle you hadn't noticed it yet. The original male though, certainly would have noticed the changes which may have caused increased aggression between the two contributing to the demise the older male. The transformation already underway now begins to speed up even more, what with his newfound dominance causing his hormones to rage unabated.

Cause of death: It wasn't natural causes......it was murder!!

Sorry, I couldn't resist when I saw you were an attorney. Love the Boy's trophies. Go Opie Romo!!

It's possible but i dont think so. I didnt look at them really closely but like i said, me and the wifey were looking at them and commenting on them Sunday night. It's possible i didnt notice the new male already starting to change but i think i would have if she already was changing.

That would help to explain what happened to the old male though. I'm really stumped at to what happened to him as he always seemed healthy and happy and ate like a pig even as late as Sunday night

p.s. GO COWBOYS!!

Dakota Reef · #6 01/09/2008, 02:12 PM

Quite a few years ago I purchased 3 female Lyretails (I actually prefer the look of the females) and they got along fine for about three months before one transformed into a male. The transformation once I noticed it was fairly swift. Less than two weeks as I remember.

If I can figure out an attractive way to keep them from jumping out of my cube tank, I'd like to add several lyretails and possibly some Bartlett's. They're all such beautiful fish.

sufunk · #7 01/09/2008, 03:41 PM

My clowns jump into my overflows all the time and once even jumped all the way out and fell on the floor. Despite their reputation, my lyretails have never even come close to jumping. Actually, they rarely are even near the top of the tank. The only time i ever see them near the top is when i feed them.