Volitan's and Russell's are usually easy to take to dead foods. Sometimes but mostly not even needing to be started out on live foods. Every once in a while a really small one may need ghosties a couple of feeding at most, or a really stubborn one. Maybe just some persistent teasing with chunky foods like shrimp or Hikari silversides to start. They will usually be open to a variety of foods that are good for their long term health; including fatty fish like tuna and salmon, squid, octopus. They'll even eat chunks of Ocean Nutrition cubed foods like Formula One and Trigger formula. You'll target feed with a feeding stick or get him trained to come up while you drop chunks for him to catch. The food needs movement, they will rarely if ever eat from the substrate unless something is live crawling or wiggling. Fresh is best when possibly, shell on shrimp cut into bite sized chunks with any sharp pieces of shell trimmed off, skin on salmon. Try a variety and see what they like, give it a few chances, sometimes they turn their noses up at it at first, then it becomes their favorite. You can even get small ones to take PE mysis from the end of a turkey baster or pipette
Antennata's are a different story, they can be one of the most difficult to take dead food. And it's not just about taking dead food, it's about taking enough of the right dead foods. Krill and silversides alone will not cut it for the long term. Both of these contain thiaminese which binds vitamin B1 and causes lockjaw(as many describe it as). Hikari silversides does not contain thiaminese. The term silversides is a term used to describe a variety of fish species.
The medium and dwarf species of lions for some reason are just pickier and more stubborn; and possibly may process nutrients a bit differently.
