lion fish
- Thread starter fishyboi
- Start date
thats probably the only thing that it will accept at the momentfishyboi said:
you can starve it for a while and see if it will accept frozen shrimp or krill?
it's kinda hard to get them off live foods
thats still a risk,fishyboi said:
try to quarantine the feeder before they become meals?
how big is the lion?
if it is small it is easier to teach them to accept non living foods
fishyboi said:
It's okay. There are a few better options available. Krill, silversides, and lancefish namely. Lions are definetly on the top of my list in terms of SW preds. Pencilfish and titan triggers round out the top 3.
Feeding fresh water feeders to a lion fish will result in a short lived lion fish.
Lion fish will eat anything but you have to work with them for a while. It's just conditioning (teaching) them. I made a post about this yesterday. Lion fish can be and are often stubborn fish, espcially big ones (a 6" dwarf is a big one) Start it out on something live that you can duplicate dead. I like to use live ghost shrimp, they normally go for that. Once the lion is to the point where it is at the surface waiting for you to drop the live ghost shrimp in, you can start tricking them with dead ghost shrimp or frozen (thawed out) krille. Lions will eventially get to the point where they will eat anything. You should not feed lions meat only, espcially don't get them hooked on shrimp & krille. During this "learning" the lion will need to be in an aquarium eigher by it self or in a tank with little compition. I feed saltwater meats like squid, shrimp & fish but I also feed the salt water fish foods that have algae and vegtable matter in it. I like Ocean Nutrition's formula foods like one & two. If you feed a meat diet only, it will not live long. If you feed it gold fish, guppies, roseys, etc, it's life will be even shorter.
It is (was) very irresponcipal of an aquarium shop to suggest to feed live "feeders" to your lion. It doesn't sound as if these people are very knowledgable....Joel
Lion fish will eat anything but you have to work with them for a while. It's just conditioning (teaching) them. I made a post about this yesterday. Lion fish can be and are often stubborn fish, espcially big ones (a 6" dwarf is a big one) Start it out on something live that you can duplicate dead. I like to use live ghost shrimp, they normally go for that. Once the lion is to the point where it is at the surface waiting for you to drop the live ghost shrimp in, you can start tricking them with dead ghost shrimp or frozen (thawed out) krille. Lions will eventially get to the point where they will eat anything. You should not feed lions meat only, espcially don't get them hooked on shrimp & krille. During this "learning" the lion will need to be in an aquarium eigher by it self or in a tank with little compition. I feed saltwater meats like squid, shrimp & fish but I also feed the salt water fish foods that have algae and vegtable matter in it. I like Ocean Nutrition's formula foods like one & two. If you feed a meat diet only, it will not live long. If you feed it gold fish, guppies, roseys, etc, it's life will be even shorter.
It is (was) very irresponcipal of an aquarium shop to suggest to feed live "feeders" to your lion. It doesn't sound as if these people are very knowledgable....Joel
Ornatapinnis said:
All great info.. However, I see less of a problem feeding them roseys and guppies, as they have alot better 'make-up' then the thiamasine/copper loaded feeder goldfish. I use a mixture of ghost shrimp, roseys, guppies, and krill.. For some reason one of my lionfish has never learned to eat prepared food, and still refuses it after all this time. In order to get him a balanced diet, I use a syringe to inject the feeder guppies or roseys with a spirulana based supplement called 'Zoe', as well as VitaChem..
I also quarantine all live feeders with meds, etc.. Not to mention about every other feeder is injected with a garlic extract, helping to entice hunger and help with internal parasites..
Occasionally I will drop $20 on 6 or so Damselfish, which sometimes take a while, but eventually all get eaten.
Limpids and amino acids (among other things) in fresh water fish are different than in salt water fish. When a salt water fish injests this, thier body can not process some of the properties of the the fresh water fish. The salt water fish is then lacking elements it needs in it's diet and now is storing properties it can not utilize or pass thru it's system. THe fish then will often "store" these properties. A common cause of death in salt water predators that were fed fresh water feeders is internal organ shut down, mosty commonly liver or kiddney damage. THis is a diect result of feeding freshwater fish. Another fairly common problem that kills lion fish is digestive tract blockage from goldfish.