Dispar Anthias

The dispar anthias is a small reef fish of the family Anthiadidae, a group long treated as a subfamily of the Serranidae. It rarely exceeds 10 cm. Males carry a vivid red dorsal fin and greatly elongated pelvic filaments, while females are softer in tone, peach-orange above and pale lavender beneath. The species ranges across the Indo-Pacific, from Christmas Island to the Line Islands, north to southern Japan and south to the Great Barrier Reef, Fiji and Samoa. It hangs at the upper edge of steep outer reef slopes, between roughly 1 and 20 m, where moderate currents sweep the reef. There it gathers in large mixed-sex aggregations that pick zooplankton from open water. A protogynous hermaphrodite, it is kept as a harem — one male to four or five females, never two males — in a mature reef tank of at least 400 litres with brisk flow, live rock overhangs and open swimming room. A lid matters, as the fish jumps. Being a strict planktivore, it needs three to four small meals a day of mysis and enriched brine shrimp; feeding, not water chemistry, is where most attempts fail. Captive breeding remains exceptional.