Addicted to venom

lion king · Sep 24, 2020

i had some time today and stopped by a lfs I don't go to that often. The little guy was flitting around, I thought he was probably hungry, so I brought him home. Acclimated him and he immediately chased down some ghosties. He's about 2" listed from Hawaii. A. Ouple more shots from the Re-imagined 90g.

xxkenny90xx · Sep 24, 2020

Nice find! What type is it?

lion king · Sep 24, 2020

He's a Hawaiian Leaf Fish, in the scorpionfish family, Taenianotus triacanthus

xxkenny90xx · Sep 24, 2020

Cool that's what I thought, those things are awesome! My lfs had a really nice big red one for a while, easily 4+"!

lion king · Sep 24, 2020

lion king · Sep 25, 2020

He seems to be pretty happy, cruising around the tank. He ate 2 small ghosties immediately after acclimation. Unless you are actually friends with your lfs, I will never trust what they tell me about fish like this eating. Many lfs never really feed fish like, they just squirt whatever else they feed their fish into his tank, and these guys aint eating that. My 1st lion rescue was from a lfs where the owner told me "he's eating everything including flake".

So knowing he was starving, I dropped a couple baby mollies in, what a crack up. You should have seen him scoot so fast to catch them, he was falling over. Depending on how he's acting, I may feed him again today. Primarily the little guys I would feed them every other day.

xxkenny90xx · Sep 25, 2020

lion king said:
He seems to be pretty happy, cruising around the tank. He ate 2 small ghosties immediately after acclimation. Unless you are actually friends with your lfs, I will never trust what they tell me about fish like this eating. Many lfs never really feed fish like, they just squirt whatever else they feed their fish into his tank, and these guys aint eating that. My 1st lion rescue was from a lfs where the owner told me "he's eating everything including flake".

So knowing he was starving, I dropped a couple baby mollies in, what a crack up. You should have seen him scoot so fast to catch them, he was falling over. Depending on how he's acting, I may feed him again today. Primarily the little guys I would feed them every other day.

Wait, your lions don't eat flakes?? Do they prefer pellets? Lol sorry, I'll stop.

I totally agree on not believing the lfs, I once had an lfs worker promise me the pipefish I wanted was eating the same frozen food all the other fish eat. Uhh no, he wouldn't touch prepared food

xxkenny90xx · Sep 25, 2020

lion king said:

Now that's a leaf fish! Nice pic!

lion king · Sep 25, 2020

Here's the tank shot, it's a bc29, you can see howbsmall he is. I think he is hunting so Ibthink I'm going to drop a couple of guppies.

Picasso the Triggerfish · Sep 26, 2020

What an amazing fish! Such a shame that not a single lfs near me sells them

... · Sep 26, 2020

That poor fish

And those poor feeder fish

LadyMac · Sep 26, 2020

Very cool looking guy!

lion king · Sep 26, 2020

I am really loving this new fish

Picasso the Triggerfish · Sep 28, 2020

lion king said:
I am really loving this new fish

How long is his lifespan?

lion king · Sep 28, 2020

Picasso the Triggerfish said:
How long is his lifespan?

Scorpionfish as a whole are noted to live 10-15 years in the wild, this particular species I don't have an exact. People do not keep them long in captivity because their 1st order of business is to "train" this fish to eat dead food. The nutritional deficiencies in that diet lead to most not keeping them much more than a 1.5 years but usually much less.

Picasso the Triggerfish · Sep 28, 2020

lion king said:
Scorpionfish as a whole are noted to live 10-15 years in the wild, this particular species I don't have an exact. People do not keep them long in captivity because their 1st order of business is to "train" this fish to eat dead food. The nutritional deficiencies in that diet lead to most not keeping them much more than a 1.5 years but usually much less.

Such a same that a fish so interesting dies so quickly

lion king · Oct 2, 2020

Leaf fish meets the white face girl

Callieach · Oct 6, 2020

It's so cute! We got our baby saddleback puffer this way. Went to an LFS (2 hour drive from here), saw her in a tank hugging the return line... When I asked about her, the response I got was "she'll stay tiny like that, but she's eating well and socializing." Umm.... They're small puffers, but they don't stay less than 2". When I asked to see her eat, the lady just dropped some flakes in and walked away. Ended up coming home with the little puffer to get her out of the LFS.