NEED YOUR HELP!! Lionfish!! PLEASE!!

[dermp]

I have aquired a loin fish. The person who owned it couldn't get it to eat and thought it was going to die so he gave it to me

Since I have put it in my tank it hides under my cabbage during the day, I guess because of my VHO's and is becoming the real hunter at night. Every so often you see him making darts at something in the tank, what ever he is going after, will it be enough for him to live off? My tank is a 72 gallon with about 100 pounds of live rock and is setup almost a year now!! Oh I have tried everything to get him to eat different foods, he just looks at it and swims away!!! He has however ate feeders for me, but for what I have been reading, they don't offer anything in value for loins.


CHEERS

dermp

[Doug1]

Dermp, whatever it is picking at in the tank is not enuff to sustain it, they have huge mouths so they can eat huge prey. Being ambush hunters they normally eat as much as they can catch at once then take a long time to digest it.
if feeders are all you can get it to eat then by all means feed it, you might try soaking food in Selcon to feed the feeders before feeding. maybe let him go a week after a meal then try to get it to take Selcon enhanced silversides or similar

[theduker25]

I have a lion as well. All mine will eat is live food. He is a predator, so his food must be moving. I feed him a couple of Rosie red goldfish a couple of times a week. He is prob my most expensive fish to feed, but he is by all means worth it. Get some live goldfish, and scoop them up with a net...stick the net in the tank and just hold it there. Let the rosies kinda swim around in the net and make sure he sees them. He will start to stalk them. Its amazing how this fish eat. They don't bite. they just suck real hard, real fast and engulf it.

After he eats, he will prob go find a quite dark place to digest. Mine hangs out upside down in a corner of the tank or a hoel int he LR I have made for him.

Hope this helps.

[Junkzoo]

Yup, if you can get it to eat live, keep using it while trying to switch over to frozen/pellet food. freeze a live feeder, or throw one that just expired in the freezer,, get it's attention(usually after it has not eaten for a while) while it's looking up at you, drop the now thawed feeder above the lion,might take a while to get it to take a dead feeder, but a lot of times it will reflex "grab" a dead, moving from the top, feeder. after you get it to take dead feeders , move to silversides, cut fish(tilapia,ocean perch)cut in slivers to look like silversides, or other frozen foods(thawed cubes/chunks etc.) in time, if you are lucky , you can move to pellets/food sticks.All this stuff should be soaked in Selcon b4 feeding..The important part is to get it's attention first,b4 dropping food in.some people use a feeding stick/scewer, with the aggressive eaters i have, that is not a option.

My lion in my 180 FO, (or anything in that tank) has not had live food for over 10 yrs.
It, and other tankmates(puffer,2 eels,Clown Trigger etc.) all eat Hicari Pellets, Tetra food sticks,Trout chow,silversides,FD Krill,cut Tilapia,Perch,mussels, shrimp,along with most all frozen foods.
FW feeders are not a good thing to feed over the long term.
only use it to get them used to thinking your hand is a Pez dispenser for food, and as soon as you can ,start switching over to frozen /pellet food.

Not feeding with FW feeders will only ensure a healthy, long -lived fish

[JennM]

You have received excellent advice above.

Pro-Salt packages large silversides... larger than the Aqua Yums brand... the resemble the little herring you buy at Sea World to feed the dolphins They are whole fish and trigger a feeding response in most of the big predators.

We always wean predators to prepared foods before we sell them, unless the buyer is willing to wean it himself. I haven't had live feeders in here for a while - we tease them with a feeding stick to simulate movement, after a few days, the fish is hungry and more willing to try something new. We feed silversides, sand eels, mysis, squid, clams, and my big lion will eat anything that drops into the big tank including nori and flakes! If it falls in, he sucks it up!

Freshwater feeders, while somewhat entertaining, are hard on your fish's liver and prolonged feeding of this will result in vitamin defficiency and shortened lifespan. Nothing wrong with the occasional "treat" but only once your fish is getting a good varied diet of prepared foods.

HTH

Jenn

[Junkzoo]

Originally posted by JennM
Pro-Salt packages large silversides... larger than the Aqua Yums brand... the resemble the little herring you buy at Sea World to feed the dolphins They are whole fish and trigger a feeding response in most of the big predators.

Jenn, i just saw those at the only shop around that carries "silver" silversides, not the lil clear ones , that nobody here likes,
Those large ones are HUGE!gonna go back on Monday , when i'm on vacation, and pick my frozen food,and a couple of issues,current and back , of that new Coral magizine. i leafed thru them, and they looked interesting

[JennM]

Good luck finding back issues... I literally *just* got off the phone with the lady from the magazine, to up my standing order. I usually just get the minimum order of any magazine because I always have leftovers -- which I stick labels on and leave in waiting rooms of tanks we maintain... but I can't keep Coral on the shelf - I called for more of the current issue and the next issue should be out during the second week of June.

Jenn