Purple Queen Anthias

blackhemi35003 · #1 11/24/2007, 09:39 PM

Anybody have any experience with Purple Queen Anthias? I bought 1 male 2 females from a lfs and they had them for a little over a month. Today is the 3rd day that I have had them. They have just now started to come out and swim. I tried giving them frozen brine, freeze-dried cycos. Do you have any other ideas to get them to start pigging out? I know they are just now swimming so maybe a couple more days till they eat. I thought I would go and get some live brine maybe that would get them. Any ideas would be helpfull.

Bloke · #2 11/24/2007, 09:48 PM

I bought two after seeing them in the store for few weeks. I brought them home, acclimated them, and tossed them in.

...They were never seen again. $70 down the drain... or into the belly of the serpent starfish.

janderson8 · #3 11/24/2007, 11:42 PM

IMHO Purple Anthias are one of those fish that should not be collected. I have yet to see a person have them survive any length of time. THe problem is they just dont eat.

I dont know where you got the fish but unless you were there every day there is a good chance that they were not there two weeks even.

As some may know I bought a Naso Tang after I was told by the OWNER of the LFS they had them over two weeks. I had about 400 dollars worth of Tangs alone and with in two days NASO was covered in little rust colored spots and all my fish died from the same thin within 5 days. After talking to the best store owner here in OKC we decided it was most likly velvet because of how quickly it killed everything.

Another thing I learned from one of the sales people at the LFS is that the Tang I bought the was said was there for a long time was actualy just brought in two TWO days prior and I was not told the truth.

Lets just say I will never buy fish there again.

jgoelz · #4 11/25/2007, 11:50 AM

I had a pink square spot anthias that I had to feed live brine for the first month. After a couple of weeks I would mix in some frozen brine and frozen mysis shrimp. After a while of that he began to eat the frozen and was slowly weened off the live stuff.

nIx_tank · #5 11/26/2007, 09:15 AM

As much as I love the look of them, I agree in that I have heard that trying to get them to eat is the hardest part.

Good luck, and I hope that your purple anthias are the exception to the rule.

Dustin JOHNSON · #6 11/26/2007, 08:38 PM

sounds like my luck. now I always try to put any new fish in my qt tank . so i can watch them for a few days.

Travis L. Stevens · #7 11/27/2007, 10:00 AM

I don't know if I'm late with this or not, but a good trick when feeding finicky anthias is to feed them roe. Preferable Flying Fish or Smelt Roe. Try to find some without preservatives, seasoning, or artificial coloration. You can typically find it at Asian Food Markets under the name Capellan and Masago respectively.

blackhemi35003 · #8 11/28/2007, 02:30 PM

Roe? What does it look like?

poke75 · #9 11/28/2007, 05:10 PM

he's the guy that does dirty jobs....

RoGeTa · #10 11/28/2007, 05:13 PM

Tiny spherical objects. They are fish eggs ^_^

blackhemi35003 · #11 11/29/2007, 09:13 AM

I bought some Roto frozen, Cyclo frozen, Marine Diet frozen, Plankton frozen and DT's. It looked like they were eating a little bit after I put some of each in. Now I just have to figure out which one.

Travis L. Stevens · #12 11/30/2007, 10:22 AM

Fish Roe = Fish Eggs. Most Anthias (and everything else in the tank) goes nuts for this stuff! Highly nutritious source of crude protein. It's great to just feed your tank every once in a while. A little goes a long way, and it is very easy to overfeed. A small jar of a couple ounces could run you $5-$10 tops, and it will probably spoil before you use it all.

Tobiko (Flying Fish Roe)

Masago (Smelt/Capelin Roe)

I highly recommend getting it locally, but to give you a price range, Froogle has Masago listed as cheap as $2.91 for a 1oz jar and Tobiko...well, let's just say a lot more than what you can find at a store

blackhemi35003 · #13 11/30/2007, 10:42 AM

Thanks Travis I will pick some up on the way home.

Travis L. Stevens · #14 11/30/2007, 11:32 AM

And just to reiterate how far this goes, a spoonful the size in the picture is probably enough to feed a 150-180g tank or larger.

blackhemi35003 · #15 11/30/2007, 11:36 AM

At one time correct?

Travis L. Stevens · #16 11/30/2007, 11:57 AM

Yes, at one time. That spoonful will feed that large of a tank for a whole feeding. As nutritious as these are, they dissappear in the rocks and through the filters very easily, so a fair amount can easily go to waste. Until you get a good feeding technique down, I would only feed it once a week when using it as part of your feeding regime. I would feed a tiny bit daily (maybe more often) just to get the Anthias to eat prepared foods. Then you can ween them off on to something more easily controllable. One thing you might want to consider is using a syringe without a needle in order to slowly add it to the tank as it is consumed. That beats putting it all in at once only to have half of it dissappear in the rocks.

blackhemi35003 · #17 11/30/2007, 12:09 PM

Agreed

oddballs · #18 12/03/2007, 03:53 PM

Any updates on these guys? Like a lot of people said i tend to agree that most anthias are best left in the wild. We dont usually order fish from this family because very few seem to eat enough food to sustain there needs!

TulsaReefer · #19 12/03/2007, 09:23 PM

You can also get these types of fish roe in the frozen section of Asian markets. I like the frozen stuff since I can make it seem to last a lot longer when compared to the jar stuff which can go bad pretty quickly once it's opened. I just scrape a bit off of the frozen brick (comes in a little plastic container) and drop the scrapings into the tank. It thaws out immediately and everyone goes nuts eating it.

And it seems nothing won't eat this stuff (Masago is what I have used). It even gets my larger sized Gammarid Amphiphods to come out to get thier share, along with the bristle worms. But I also only put in a little at a time, since Travis is right, it blows all over the tank in the current. I've even had a few corals show feeding responses to this stuff, a plate, and a coupe species of palys will go nuts and try to snag their share as well. A little too large in size for my other corals, but still good stuff.

Also, have you tried the frozen Cyclopeeze freezer bars? I just dip one end of mine in the water a few seconds, wave it around, some melt off and the tank is in a feeding frenzy. Then wrap what's left up in a freezer baggie, and throw it back in the deep freeze. Super convienent, and quick and easy if you want to feed a few times a day, just dip, swirl, and watch the fish (and corals) go nuts.

blackhemi35003 · #20 12/10/2007, 11:24 AM

I have tried everything now and they are still not eating. Didn't even look at the roe. The other fish loved it but I don't think they are going to last too much longer which is sad any other ideas do let me know.

janderson8 · #21 12/10/2007, 11:48 AM

The queens just do not eat. I am very sorry for your experence. Maybe next time you can try some disbar or bartlett anthias they seem to be the only ones to do well in the aquarium.

blackhemi35003 · #22 12/10/2007, 12:27 PM

I had very good luck with lyretail anthias so I will try those next. Out of the 2 you have spoken of which would be the better?

Travis L. Stevens · #23 12/10/2007, 10:46 PM

Sorry to hear that. THose must be some extremely picky Anthias. I've yet to experience an Anthias that doesn't eat eggs.

jgoelz · #24 12/11/2007, 12:06 AM

Curious if you have tried the live brine shrimp?

BlackSumbel · #25 12/12/2007, 06:17 PM

There's a retailer who sells live, young, shrimp. I believe he goes by "Noni". He usually sells them for seahorses (and for eating, as they are edible shrimp), so they come in a wide range of sizes.

April might recall his web address, as I cannot. And I know Seahorse.org sings his praises regularly. You -might- be able to get them to eat these, but there's no real guarantee.