How do you get a lionfish to eat frozen food?

[whatcaneyedo]

Try krill and silversides. I had a Volitan for 5 years and those were its favourites. It wouldn't even look at pellets or mysis and rarely ever ate clam or squid.

[ReefOcean]

I had a fuzzy. When I first got it, I held a skewered krill gently pressed up on it's lips for 40 minutes while watching Seinfeld. It FINALLY grabbed it. It took a time, but pretty soon, the fish would instantly go after the krill. Most of my carnivores have been like this...aside from any triggerfish.

Id say just be persistant, try many times, different times of the day. try dancing the food in the tank, waving it around, shoving it right in the fishes face and holding it there.

[Gripenfelter]

Originally Posted by ReefOcean

I had a fuzzy. When I first got it, I held a skewered krill gently pressed up on it's lips for 40 minutes while watching Seinfeld. It FINALLY grabbed it. It took a time, but pretty soon, the fish would instantly go after the krill. Most of my carnivores have been like this...aside from any triggerfish.

Id say just be persistant, try many times, different times of the day. try dancing the food in the tank, waving it around, shoving it right in the fishes face and holding it there.

He hides behind rocks until about midnight and comes out. Seen him twice this week. I drop silversides and inject mysis shrimp behind the rocks.

No clue if he is eating or not. Been 4 weeks since I visually saw him eating at the pet store.

[reefwars]

with all the fish in your sig chances are he probably is intimidated to eat with the others ,maybe putting him in a tank by himself untill he eats is an optionfeeding a finiky fish is a challenge but feeding one with alot of other fish around just makes it even hardergood luck bud

[reefwars]

if hes hungry enough chances are he will knock off some smaller fish or def the cleaner shrimp...if he already hasnt

[ReefOcean]

Originally Posted by Gripenfelter

He hides behind rocks until about midnight and comes out. Seen him twice this week. I drop silversides and inject mysis shrimp behind the rocks.

No clue if he is eating or not. Been 4 weeks since I visually saw him eating at the pet store.

Id say ignore the mysis. I found no luck in just dropping silversides or krill into the tank. Once it hits the sand, my fish/eels would not touch it.

If it is hiding behind rocks, that might be a new issue all together, out of alll the lionfish I have seen, and the 3 I have owned all of them have pretty much stay perched in the open. When a fish hides in the rocks, it is usually a sign that it is stressed.

You need to get the fish in the open and intice it to eat.

A more drastic approach would be to isolate it, and force feed it until it is weened. i have never had to do this myself, but i have heard people doing it with varying success. The key is to make the fish ciomfortable, and remove distractions and stress.

[ScubaSteve]

It's been mentioned before but I'll stress it: You need to know what the fish's eating pattern is. Volitans are stalkers/hunters and will typically, until acclimated to other food, not touch anything that is obviously dead. If they see the food fall to the bottom they consider it dead and leave it alone. Try to make a silverside dance in the rocks near where he hangs out and see if that will entice him out. I am assuming he's a wild caught fish, so he's still going to have the wild feeding response until you teach him otherwise.

As reefwars said, if he's hiding and not picking off your smaller fish, then he's probably stressed out. Have you seen anyone picking on him?

[Gripenfelter]

A couple of weeks ago I saw a cleaner shrimp clean his mouth and a small chromis hover above his head...nothing lol.