weird anthias situation

[KennioSays]

So I have 4 lyretail anthias.... 3 of which are around 3-4 inches and are female for sure and I have 1 that is only about 1 1/2" and is the tiniest of the bunch. The 3 bigger one only eats frozen blood worms and cycopleeze my little one eats nls pellets cycopleeze frozen blood worms and even goes around the tank eating pods?...

 

The weird thing is the smallest one is turning male? Even though I don't think he reach maturity yet. He has grown the long dorsal spike and is turning purple/red... And he also picks on everything in the tank. Should I just let him be or remove him?

[Smurf]

For what its worth:

 

I've purchased a pair of clowns from one of my LFS's long ago - and oddly enough the smaller of the pair turned into the female. He showed a strong passion when fighting with the other fish and always got the one up during feeding time for about a month. As soon as he was big enough to win fights against the other fish, he did. Once he was dominant enough, he grew into a she. haha

[KennioSays]

Yeah it just doesn't make sense because I did a lot of reading before commniting to anthias and always read that the biggest and baddest will turn male. Not little Tim

[Azedenkae]

It's just how it generally is, doesn't mean that it has to be the case. In certain situations, such as this, the runt can become the male.

 

Of course, how exactly did it cause this situation, we don't know. XD

 

But I am not surprised, to be honest. Fish does whatever they want to do.

[Tamberav]

Sometimes you will end up with multiple males. Anthias just don't give a damn.

[TSwizzy]

Poor little Tim....funny stuff