anthias
- Thread starter kirkwood
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I hope so. I don't have any clue why but I thought I had a female and a juvenile in my tank. Today I added two more that I thought were females. Turns out I have 1 female and 3 males. The existing male is protecting that female like nobody's business. He won't let any of the new males near her. And the new males are a tad bigger than the existing male. I will see how this pans out. I hope that because I added 2 new males that the harassment will get split between them so that neither gets too much.
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Yeah, they can change and Males don't get along at all. Can you take the recent purchases back? Which store sold you multiple males in the first place?!?! They'll fight until they establish an order, one or more dies, or they set territories. In a 120, the last scenario is possible, but iffy.
$30 if you can make it to me the next couple days. I'm home Monday and Tuesday. I'm close to little 5 points in between downtown Atlanta and Decatur.
Edit: Also will trade for female. I just fed cyclopeeze and all 3 males are out feeding without aggression. Can only hope the lone female can please them all.
Here is a pic of the 4 bartletts this morning. The dominant male is in the top left corner and the female is in the bottom right. The two in the middle are the new males but I'm starting to see stronger differences in color between the dominant male and the new males. I'm wondering if perhaps the male transformation wasn't complete and perhaps they could be reverting back to female? Just a stab in the dark.
The other weird thing is that in normal ambient daylight the bartletts all hang out together with no aggression. But when the LEDs come on the dominant male becomes territorial and harasses the other 2 males.
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The other weird thing is that in normal ambient daylight the bartletts all hang out together with no aggression. But when the LEDs come on the dominant male becomes territorial and harasses the other 2 males.
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I don't know if anyone is reading this thread but I thought I would post an update for those with Bartletts or other anthias because I have been observing some interesting behavior.
You can see pretty clearly in the pic in my last post the dominant male coloration. The 2 new Bartletts I added when this thread was created you can make your own determination if they look more like the female or male. I took a video of them to Einstein aquatic and Chris believed they were females. Of late the dominant male aggression has not been too bad. So looking back I think that when I added the 2 new Bartletts, the Dom male showed aggression towards the newbies. This was exacerbated by the fact the newbies are bigger than the Dom male. Dom male Bartletts should be the biggest of the group and mine is not so I think that threatens him and so he shows more aggression towards the newbies to make sure they don't try challenging him for dominance. So now I think the 2 newbies are in fact females and the Dom male is preventing them from changing sex.
I think I will wind up with a happy family after all is said and done.
You can see pretty clearly in the pic in my last post the dominant male coloration. The 2 new Bartletts I added when this thread was created you can make your own determination if they look more like the female or male. I took a video of them to Einstein aquatic and Chris believed they were females. Of late the dominant male aggression has not been too bad. So looking back I think that when I added the 2 new Bartletts, the Dom male showed aggression towards the newbies. This was exacerbated by the fact the newbies are bigger than the Dom male. Dom male Bartletts should be the biggest of the group and mine is not so I think that threatens him and so he shows more aggression towards the newbies to make sure they don't try challenging him for dominance. So now I think the 2 newbies are in fact females and the Dom male is preventing them from changing sex.
I think I will wind up with a happy family after all is said and done.
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It's funny, but from the picture they all look like females to me. I also heard they only go from female to male.
Here you can see the dominant male on the top and the lowest ranking female... This is the only female that is smaller than the male and was added to the tank at the same time... She is permitted to swim about at her leisure.. The 2 larger females are not.. I think this pic shows how much more significant the males coloration has become over the past few weeks.
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