Cali Kid Corals

Chromis’s 90g Acropora tank

I have an update on my quest to add fathead anthias to my display. First, the anthia I got from Diver’s Den Sept ‘21 is doing great in the frag tank, although he only eats frozen food. I haven’t tried to restrict to only flake to see if I can convert him though. Trying to grow him out so he’s ready for round two against the display chromises!
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I finally managed to get two more fathead anthias about a week ago. This took six months to accomplish because there were many failed attempts - Bay Bridge wasn’t able to procure any within a reasonable amount of time (I have a rule that I don’t let orders hang past my 3-month credit card protection limit); one DOA from Divers Den (it was so sad - they shipped it out of Wisconsin during a cold week with the heat pack mistakenly placed OUTside the insulation bag - poor thing probably froze on the way to the airport). Three times LA cancelled my anthias order citing items no longer available - did they die before they could ship?! Another time Diver’s Den mistakenly put two feather duster fan worms in my order instead of two fathead anthias. So as I was starting to wonder if I should give up, but I placed a SEVENTH order, at LA, using a St Patrick’s day sale code. That turned out to be the lucky order!

That two fatheads arrived 3/22. They arrived ALIVE, looked good out of the bag but were super lethargic, at one point I thought one was dead because when it wasn’t wedged in a rock not moving, it was swimming head down like it was trying not to float. On day one they got a dose of Metroplex. By day 4 I’d reduced the QT salinity from the 28ppt of the bag they shipped in to 12-13ppt so they could deworm and spend energy on recovery instead of osmotic regulation. I was careful to maintain the alkalinity to 7-8dKH. They were not interested at all in eating until day 5 or so, but now both are eating frozen brine and mysis which is a big relief.
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I’m not sure what my plan is with the new fish. Should I put them in the frag tank with the third anthia to see if two of them pair off, or if they all get along, and then move them to the display all at once?
 
Chromis said:
I have an update on my quest to add fathead anthias to my display. First, the anthia I got from Diver’s Den Sept ‘21 is doing great in the frag tank, although he only eats frozen food. I haven’t tried to restrict to only flake to see if I can convert him though. Trying to grow him out so he’s ready for round two against the display chromises!
View attachment 36907

I finally managed to get two more fathead anthias about a week ago. This took six months to accomplish because there were many failed attempts - Bay Bridge wasn’t able to procure any within a reasonable amount of time (I have a rule that I don’t let orders hang past my 3-month credit card protection limit); one DOA from Divers Den (it was so sad - they shipped it out of Wisconsin during a cold week with the heat pack mistakenly placed OUTside the insulation bag - poor thing probably froze on the way to the airport). Three times LA cancelled my anthias order citing items no longer available - did they die before they could ship?! Another time Diver’s Den mistakenly put two feather duster fan worms in my order instead of two fathead anthias. So as I was starting to wonder if I should give up, but I placed a SEVENTH order, at LA, using a St Patrick’s day sale code. That turned out to be the lucky order!

That two fatheads arrived 3/22. They arrived ALIVE, looked good out of the bag but were super lethargic, at one point I thought one was dead because when it wasn’t wedged in a rock not moving, it was swimming head down like it was trying not to float. On day one they got a dose of Metroplex. By day 4 I’d reduced the QT salinity from the 28ppt of the bag they shipped in to 12-13ppt so they could deworm and spend energy on recovery instead of osmotic regulation. I was careful to maintain the alkalinity to 7-8dKH. They were not interested at all in eating until day 5 or so, but now both are eating frozen brine and mysis which is a big relief.
View attachment 36908
I’m not sure what my plan is with the new fish. Should I put them in the frag tank with the third anthia to see if two of them pair off, or if they all get along, and then move them to the display all at once?
Click to expand...
I’ve never seen more than a pair long term. Hope you have success, super cool fish
 
Coral reefer said:
I’ve never seen more than a pair long term. Hope you have success, super cool fish
Click to expand...
With that experience I will probably see which two of the three pair off and then move just those two to the display. I don’t want a third wheel that I can’t easily remove from the display.
 
Chromis said:
With that experience I will probably see which two of the three pair off and then move just those two to the display. I don’t want a third wheel that I can’t easily remove from the display.
Click to expand...
I only tried more than 2 one time. Just haven’t seen anyone else do it either
 
I contacted AquaSD where I bought my RR Angry birds and they told me I should give mine more nutrients or less light. Unfortunately I couldn’t get details of the nutrient or light levels they keep theirs under to compare, or the type of “food” they “feed” their acros weekly. If anyone has advice let me know.
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The fathead anthias are almost out of QT, I’ve been slowly raising the tank salinity back from 12ppt to 33ppt - I do this with around 15-20% daily water changes to raise salinity about 2-3ppt per day. Up to today I’ve been using NSW so there has been zero algae in their tank. Today I started using water from the tank I intend to put them into in the water change. That way I figure if they are going to react to anything in the water (bacteria, cilia, phyto/green water, chemicals etc) they will do it while they are still in QT, not being harassed by the other tank fish yet, and I can still treat them if they get sick. They are at 29ppt as of today so just a couple more days until they are ready to go into an observation box inside the tank with the other fish!
 
So I created a crab-trap like contraption out of netting and poles inside my frag tank and added the to 2 new fathead anthias into it - I thought my fish trap was too small for an observation box after all. The resident anthia seemed to want to be close to them and spent time right next to the net, but not like lunging at them all shark-cagey. So I let them loose after a day, and all three get along. No fighting at all. But we’ll see how they are in 3-6 months before I add any to my display. It would be great to get all 3 in there but it doesn’t sound like that’s how these fish work in aquaria.
 
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