Lyretail Anthias - the King is dead, long live the King! Options?

mattsilvester · #1 12/28/2007, 12:30 PM

Well, my lyretail anthias have been brewing up for WW3 for the last few weeks, and last night it happened.
The biggest female had reached a ponit where she was bigger than the male - and today the "the king is dead, long live the king" ..... well, the male is hiding having lost the fight and the new male is swimming around. In spite of loosing te fight however, he appears to be in better shape - the new male is quite battered, fins in shreads, breathing heavily, etc.

So, I have to remove one of them and have two options:

Option 1: Remove the new male, letting the old one regain his dominance. The old male appears to be in better shape in general - the new one could yet fall prey to sickness.......

Option 2: Remove the old male, letting the new male keep his prize. Keep the old male in q-tine for a month, and if all goes well, return him to the shop, BUT...... if the new male takes a turn for the worse, I can reintroduce the old male......

I would prefer to keep the new male to be honest, he has proved to be the stronger fish, hence must generally be healthier......

Thoughts?

Cheers,

Matt

sunfish11 · #2 12/28/2007, 02:37 PM

I just went through this as well. My Lyretail group is going on two years together now with one male and 3 females. About a month ago the biggest female which is now bigger than the male started challenging for dominance. They were fighting all the time. I just let nature take it's course because the tank is big and there was no way I could get one out anyway. They both would up looking pretty scraped up, the male looking worse. I thought he would die. To my surprise he came back and beat the big female and won back dominace. She is still bigger than him but things seem to be back to normal now with the original male in control of the group. The female outgrew him simply because she eats anything and he has always been pickier, only eating certain frozen. Anyway, good luck with your fish. How long have you had them?

Lisa

mattsilvester · #3 12/28/2007, 03:56 PM

I've only had them about 4 or 5 months.........

Started out with 6 ...... lost one in q-tine tank. Now I have 5......

It actually looks like my biggest female is taking on the physical characteristics of a true male...... the tail is getting bigger, as is the "spike" at the front of his / her dorsal fin......

I think the only possible outcome is for one of these guys to end up dead, to be honest. If I do decide to take one out, the next problem is how to catch it in a 240 gal tank (8x2x2) with lots of rock.......

Cheers,
Matt

reeffreak2007 · #4 12/28/2007, 04:23 PM

Two males can fight to the death.A male and a female transforming into a male will do the same.I would take the weaker male back or eventually he will be toast.

mattsilvester · #5 12/28/2007, 05:23 PM

thanks reeffreak2007 - you seem to be into your Anthias in a big way - have you ever tried getting one out of a big tank without stripping the whole thing down? I have a few peices of rock in there that weigh in excess of 15kg (30-40lbs) ..... taking them out would seriously pose a very real risk of actualy breaking or damaging the tank! So I am reluctant to try...... but I am sickened by the thought of just letting them get on with it if death is a certainty for one of them!!!!

Cheers,

Matt

reeffreak2007 · #6 12/28/2007, 05:34 PM

Sorry Matt,the last time I tried to remove a sunset anthias it was a no go.I know anthias can jump but I never seen a lyretail jump before.Maybe you can get it to jump into a bucket.That was a joke,good luck on trying to catch one.

mattsilvester · #7 12/28/2007, 05:49 PM

I'll be honest reeffreak - I am not even going to try and catch one with a net...... it is utterly futile..... even if I took out everything except the couple of large bits of rock... they would just swim around the rock at lightening speed, and the net would keep getting caught on the rocks!

I need a "plan" to get this guy out......