New lionfish!

littlefoxx · Sep 17, 2023

@lion king I know my guy is still new to the tank, tried feeding him some small pieces of rods predator and no interest, tried with the fishing line. Just wondering how long I should try this before getting him some live food and what live food should I start him on if it comes to that? Just want to make sure the little guy gets what he needs since he is super small and young!

Pickle_soup · Sep 17, 2023

littlefoxx said:
@lion king I know my guy is still new to the tank, tried feeding him some small pieces of rods predator and no interest, tried with the fishing line. Just wondering how long I should try this before getting him some live food and what live food should I start him on if it comes to that? Just want to make sure the little guy gets what he needs since he is super small and young!

Mysis is my go-to food with picky eaters.

lion king · Sep 17, 2023

A new lion I always make sure they eat right away, it's the best metric to access their health. If they are not interested in dead food I will offer them live ghost shrimp and/or guppies, after they have eaten well, after a couple/few feedings, you can start to offer them dead food using various methods to see which foods and methods they will respond to. At that point a few days without eating is fine, but I DO NOT believe in the starvation method to get them to eat dead food. Feeding fresh dead ghosties or guppies is a good first step to getting them to eat dead food. Multiple methods including the baster, stick, hemo's, and just keeping the food suspended in the water column with the feeding stick. Volitans usually respond pretty quickly.

Slocke · Sep 17, 2023

A volitan? Mine took a week to start eating dead. Now I can’t get it to stop. Got some salmon today though:

littlefoxx · Sep 17, 2023

lion king said:
A new lion I always make sure they eat right away, it's the best metric to access their health. If they are not interested in dead food I will offer them live ghost shrimp and/or guppies, after they have eaten well, after a couple/few feedings, you can start to offer them dead food using various methods to see which foods and methods they will respond to. At that point a few days without eating is fine, but I DO NOT believe in the starvation method to get them to eat dead food. Feeding fresh dead ghosties or guppies is a good first step to getting them to eat dead food. Multiple methods including the baster, stick, hemo's, and just keeping the food suspended in the water column with the feeding stick. Volitans usually respond pretty quickly.

Cool! Im going to try with a stick with rods since it has a large variety of meat for him and if not Ill get some shrimp and guppies from the store for him! can I convert guppies to salt water I cant remember if they are like mollies. Got a spare 10 gallon I can keep them in. And yeah I dont want to starve him at all!

littlefoxx · Sep 17, 2023

Slocke said:
A volitan? Mine took a week to start eating dead. Now I can’t get it to stop. Got some salmon today though:

Beautiful fish!!! Is that your 125? How many fish do you have??

Slocke · Sep 17, 2023

littlefoxx said:
Beautiful fish!!! Is that your 125? How many fish do you have??

Banded snake eel 26"
Gold spotted snake eel 25"
Snowflake eel 15"
Engineer gobies 10"
Magnificent foxface 7"
Pearscale butterfly 3"
Regal angelfish 2.5"
Zebra angelfish 4"
Red coris wrasse 3"
Melanarus wrasse 4"
Dragon wrasse 3"
Bluestreak cleaner wrasse 2"
Falco hawk 3"
Maroon clownfish 3.5"
Volitan lionfish 3"
Lunare wrasse 2”

Slocke · Sep 17, 2023

littlefoxx said:
Cool! Im going to try with a stick with rods since it has a large variety of meat for him and if not Ill get some shrimp and guppies from the store for him! can I convert guppies to salt water I cant remember if they are like mollies. Got a spare 10 gallon I can keep them in. And yeah I dont want to starve him at all!

You can
I’ve had them for a few months in full saltwater. Can’t breed though

littlefoxx · Sep 17, 2023

Slocke said:
You can
I’ve had them for a few months in full saltwater. Can’t breed though

Gotcha, I want to get him on frozen so I would hope that would be enough time! Can I also keep feeder shrimp and stuff in salt?

Slocke · Sep 17, 2023

littlefoxx said:
Gotcha, I want to get him on frozen so I would hope that would be enough time! Can I also keep feeder shrimp and stuff in salt?

Unfortunately saltwater feeder shrimp are very hard to come by. They seem to be constantly out of stock. Honestly I doubt anything you add will last very long. The lion will gorge itself.

littlefoxx · Sep 17, 2023

Slocke said:
Unfortunately saltwater feeder shrimp are very hard to come by. They seem to be constantly out of stock. Honestly I doubt anything you add will last very long. The lion will gorge itself.

I I was more wondering to keep them until he is ready to eat again in a separate tank