I need elp with my lion fish please.

[volitansman]

Does any one know if a volitans lion can live on brine shrimp alone? Last week I put a plenum filter/sump on my tank that has been running for five years and puts out a constant supply of brine shrimp. Since that night my lion (about two to two and a half inches long) hasn't eaten anything that I can see and he has taken to hiding in the back corner of the tank..

Is it possible that he's eating the brine shrimp, or is something wrong with him and should I be worried?

[volitansman]

On annother note although I havn't tested the water lately I don't believe it's a water quality issue. I have four damsels and a yellow tang living with him and they are all doing fine.

[tims]

hi, i do not have a vot. but a fuzzy dwarf..
brine do not have much if any nutr. value to them, i would not use them as a main feed.
i would check as yuour values as soon as you can, make sure they are right..
also has the flow increased a lot? they do not always like the heavy flow.
you can try other frozen foods like rosey reds or krill, i soak mine in garlic and he now eats frozen and not live food..
your damsels many be a problem.. when he gets bigger they will either be food or they will try and pick on him and all other fish in the tank...

HTH

[Casey]

I would say no my doesnt even look at them,better keep an eye on him.

[JennM]

Brine shrimp do not live in saltwater aquariums. If you are seeing small crustaceans they are probably copepods and amphipods.

How long have you had the lion? What did he eat before? It's not unusual for a lion not to eat every day. They are opportunistic predators and eat when they can, but they don't need heavy feedings daily. It's not unusual for them to hang upside down under a dark ledge - that's their nature - ambush predators.

First off, test your water. Lions are sensitive to low pH. If your water checks out, then we can start looking for other possiblities.

In time the damsels may become lionfish food - maybe not. They are pretty fast

Jenn

[volitansman]

I've had the lion for about two months and have been feeding him frozen krill. The guy at the pet shop said to feed him one little pice every day untill he got a little bigger and then break him down to a few times a week. Up untill last week he came to the front of the aquarium and begged for food whenever I was near and snapped it up as soon as I put it in.


The damsels don't even look at the lion, and although I do like them, if they become lion food it wouldn't bother me too much. After all they were purchased for tank cycling.

The water flow in the tank has increased lately but he quit eating before I did that. I'm not sure that would be a problem anyway, I often used to see him sitting in the flow right out of one of my powerheads, it was kind of funny becase his fins would kind of flap in the breeze.

Just tested the water, salinity 1.026, ph 8.2, amonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5 ppm. In other words I need to add some fresh water to bring my salinity down to my preffered level but erything else is fine.

[JennM]

Try varying his diet a bit. If he's sluggish to eat, try some live ghost shrimp (freshwater). Avoid goldfish - they are messy and not very nutritious... but you can gut-load ghosts with spirulina flake etc., before you feed them to the lion. Could be he just needs a bit of "sport".

Fish cannot live by krill alone - try some frozen silversides, prawn, mysis, sand eels ... as I type this I'm watching our big tank inhabitants snarfing down a whole smorgasbord of stuff

HTH

Jenn

[Geoff]

Nikki's predators get a varied diet of different shrimp. generally only a couple of times a week. we keep an eye on their tummies. when they show just a slight sunkeness we feed them till they look right. not good to over feed these guys. many problems can occur if overfead. we generally feed ghost shrimp, Krill, and seafood counter shrimp. none are big enough for silversides yet, but they will be added shortly when they do get big enough.

G~

[volitansman]

Well my friends, on top of the problems I've been having with the lion fish, tonight I had a MAJOR leakage. I'm not sure what caused it but I got home this evening and had about 25 gallons of water on the floor. I'm really surprized but my roommate wasn't nearly as pissed as I thought he would be considering he owns the house and the brand new carpet. So I've just spent the last three hours cleaning up the carpet and making new water for the fish to live in because out of a forty gallon tank they had about seven gallons left. That's not a lot of realestate considering the sixty pounds of live rock. I was going to try some other foods but he won't even come out of the back of the tank right now.

[Geoff]

WOW!

have you figured out why all the water was not in the tank?

G~

[Awestralian]

Hire a steam cleaner, it sucks the water right up.
Youd never know the tank had leaked afterwards.
We had a 6 foot tank empty out almost completely on our lounge room floor once...

[volitansman]

I think it was a combination of two things, first a pump with a hose on it sprung a leak and then when the water level got low enough another pump started pushing it straight out the top of the tank because it was aimed wrong.

Luckily my aunt owns a home rug steamer so I borrowed it and cleaned it up. I'm planning on moving the sump this week sometime and cleaning up underneath it. let's hope this never happens again. On the upside all of the fish are still doing well, but the lion is still hiding.

[ShirleyM]

Hello volitansman,

I'm sorry your lion is having trouble, and that your tank had such a drastic leak today.

We have a Volitan Lionfish in a 125 tank...he was a couple inches long four years ago and is now quite large...he would not have thrived in a 40-gallon tank. He eats formula one, formula two, silversides, live minnows once in awhile, thawed shrimp (grocery store shrimp), bits of siquid and octopus, etc.

We handfeed him two or three times a week...but he often eats when the other fish eat as well.

I must politely say...tangs need a minimum of 4 ft length of tank to thrive, and a volitan lion needs a very large tank. Ours has nearly outgrown our 125 FOwLR tank. He is one of 6 fish in there.

Try to feed him fresh shrimp with a turkey baster...put a live minnow in there to see if that stimulates his appetite.

Good luck,

~ Shirley

[volitansman]

I do realize that the 40 gallon is going to be too small for some of the fish I have in it. Right now everyone is small and happy, the only reason they are in such a small tank is because it's all my roommate would let me set up. I got about sixty pounds of live rock and about $1500 worth of equipment from a friend for free so I had to have somewhere to put it all. I already have a 55 gallon tank I could set up but no room right now and plans are in the works to get a 180 gallon and build a 240 as soon as I get my own place.

I am planning on trying live food this week, after all I don't want to lose him. He is definately the prize of my fish collection and on a slightly more stingy note they're not cheap either.

[volitansman]

Hey all, a small bit of good news, the lion fish just ate a small piece of krill. I'm not going to quit worrying untill I see him eat some more though. I am definately going to get him some different foods this week.

~Stuart