Does my Lionfish ever eat?

[alfredshouse]

I bought a Volitan Lionfish from Big Als a few weeks ago. The girl there said it had been there for five weeks and was eating frozen foods. Ive put in Everything under the sun and it doesnt seem to eat very often, maybe once a week it eats a silverside. Does anyone else have this problem? I should mention that he appears to be healthy, he swims, he perches. Ive tried soaking food in garlic, letting it float, putting it on a skewer and even pestering him , by hanging it in his face. Any thoughts??:biggrin:

[Aquattro]

I'd get a couple of cheap fish (saltwater) for him to try. They should eat more often, I believe. I had one years ago, it ate like a pig for a while, then just stopped. Eventually starved to death.

[spreerider]

you can make guppies survive in saltwater and feed them to it live.

[Scavenger]

I had a dwarf lion that was very hard to train to frozen food. What I did was cut the business end off a fishing hook so it was just a straight shaft then impale a silver side on it. (head to tail)
Dropped it into tank and stood back about 10 feet and just wiggled it in the current to simulate an injured fish. Lion hit it and stripped it off hook everytime. About 3 days later all it took was dropping the silverside into tank.
I don't recommend skewering and wiggling in face. The lion will become scared of food rather than drawn to it in my opinion.

[Aquattro]

you can make guppies survive in saltwater and feed them to it live.

guppies don't provide proper nutrition, which is why you need saltwater fish. Chromis would work well, not sure what else is cheap. A couple of guppies or small goldfish might help to get it eating, but don't feed long term.

[Treebeard]

Have you tried Krill?

[alfredshouse]

ive tried,silversides, clams,mussels,octopus,shrimp,krill,mysis and i just tried sand eels and he ate two of them!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!

[hipp77]

I had a lionfish and I would feed it three times a week. If you are going to feed it live what I did for a while I had bought a couple pairs of black mollies ( and put them in saltwater) and they had babies and I kept them in saltwater and would feed them only until I got the lionfish eating silversides using a feeding probe, then I started feeding food sticks.

[midgetwaiter]

guppies don't provide proper nutrition, which is why you need saltwater fish. Chromis would work well, not sure what else is cheap. A couple of guppies or small goldfish might help to get it eating, but don't feed long term.

Feeding SW fish to a predator has the potential to get you in big trouble, much too risky from a disease transmission point of view. There is no significant risk of transmitting disease from a FW fish and you can make up nutritional deficiencies by giving the prey a good marine pellet before feeding with them. Guppies and mollies are a good choice and will usually set up shop in the tank if the lion doesn't pick them off right away. Goldfish are bad news, leads to liver problems over time.

However, I wouldn't be surprised to see a lion go on a month long hunger strike after being moved to a new tank. Chill out, try and feed it a couple times a week and it will get used to you.

[naesco]

I bought a Volitan Lionfish from Big Als a few weeks ago. The girl there said it had been there for five weeks and was eating frozen foods. Ive put in Everything under the sun and it doesnt seem to eat very often, maybe once a week it eats a silverside. Does anyone else have this problem? I should mention that he appears to be healthy, he swims, he perches. Ive tried soaking food in garlic, letting it float, putting it on a skewer and even pestering him , by hanging it in his face. Any thoughts??:biggrin:

Did you see her eating in the LFS?

[Aquattro]

you can make up nutritional deficiencies by giving the prey a good marine pellet before feeding with them.

Hmm, and why didn't I think of that!! Good idea.

[TheMikey]

I was just about to suggest that you might try "gut loading" the fish you feed. I know that it's a great strategy to use on crickets when feeding them to geckos and chameleons. Havent heard about fish, though.