i love my lion.
1) he's like a puppy in the way that he'll always greet me and beg for food at the surface of the water... sometimes he'll try to spit water at me. so i guess behavious is number one for me, but the looks count too... these are beautiful fish... not the most active swimmers, but beautiful nonetheless.
2) easy. my advice is to get one that is already accepting frozens... although weaning to frozen shouldnt be that hard for most volitans. every once in a while they will shed their coat... not unlike a snake shedding. at this time they might rub themselves up agains thte rocks and twitch a lot... dont worry about it and dont stress it out by doing anything brash like meds or QT.
3) mine was already eating frozen when i got him, so now i keep him on a varied diet of mysis, krill and silversides, oce every two days. i dont feed krill as often as the other two though as krill isnt the best food... silversides are slightly better apparently. i like to hand feed mine and have never come close to being stung.
4) i feeed no live, but if i found a cheap source for shrimp or fish, i would feed live occasionally just for fun... if the live were FW organisms, then i would only feed at most three times a month.
5) once it found out i was the god of food, it will wake up ANY time im around... morning, day, night, any time but the real dead times (like 2am to 6am)
6) do your research and act accordingly and no tankmates should be victims. easy enough really, just make sure the tankmates are at least two thirds the lion's size, or to be safe, the same size or larger than the lion... that way it allows the lion to grow without you worrying (they can grow fast)
7) i dunno how much mine has grown, but it has grown considerably... a well fed young lion can double in size in a year.
8) i see no negatives to this fish... i mean, no shrimp, and no small fish, but i think the lion is totally worth it. it's even reef safe! just be sure to provide a large enough tank... at the moment i have my 6inch guy in a 60gal, but i will have to upgrade to at least 100gal by the time he hits a foot long (upgrade scheduled for next summer).
one thing i should add is first aid. KNOW what to do in the case of a sting to yourself or someone else. if you have allergies then be doubly careful. when i handfeed, im in virtually no danger due to the orientation of the hand to the fish, but during tank maintenance the fish can get curious about your arm, so keep an eye on it at all times and if it gets close shoo it away with a stick or something.
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