Lionfish help

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milhous3er

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Apr 13, 2010
Messages
248
Location
Columbus, Ohio
hi guys, I need some help with a antenneta lionfish that i'm trying to feed. What I have for him now is krill that I have soaked in Garlic Guard. I've soaked about 5 krill in this stuff just to try to get him to acknowledge the krill. I've done my research on these guys, and some say they take a week to eat after acclimating it into my tank. He's been in since Sat. and so far he shows no signs or interest in feeding. Am I just jumping the gun right now ???

I was going to experiment switching mollies from FW to SW, but all that i've seen are way too big for him to eat. He's only around 1 1/2" long. Any help or advice would be awesome !!!

Thanks !!
 
I would try some different foods. Small pieces of fish or crustations. If your local fish store has live feeder shrimp you can give those a shot too. Some time alive and moving helps catch their interest.
 
Should I buy fish at the grocery or silversides ?? Maybe the lion is attracted to the garlic smell that i've been soaking the krill in ?? The only feeders my LFS has are FW goldfish and some small white fish that he feeds his lions. He's not that educated when it comes to SW anything, so i'm cautious when I buy anything from him to begin with.
 
I would start with some silversides. Defrost them for a while and chop them up to smaller pieces that look appropriate for his size. People do use grocery store fish/seafood though so it is really up to you.
 
I'm going to try the silversides tomorrow. If he doesn't take to them by Friday, a LFS about 30 minutes from me has baby mollies that he can gobble right up.

Should I be using the garlic guard for stimulation ??
 
I would try a couple pieces with and without. I doubt it would hurt your situation at all so you got nothing to lose.
 
He didn't take to the silversides. Acknowledged the silverside, but didn't bite. I'm going to try some ghost shrimp and some mollies tomorrow. From what I've been researching, most dwarf lions especially Antennetas usually go at least a week before feeding. He still has all of his color to him and swims around fine, he's just not eating.

One thing it did notice today was that when I turned off my PHs he came out of his cave a swam around freely. He usually doesn't come out of his cave if the PHs are on. Could too much flow be stressing this guy out ?? I moved one of my PHs and angled it to the back of the tank to minimize flow.
 
I got him to eat some ghost shrimp last night. I bought 3 for him, and he ate on right off the start. It was pretty interesting watching him stalk these guys though. Flaring his fins and all, he'd chase for alittle, then stop. Pretty interesting !! He didn't seem too interested in the mollies I bought, but they are surprisingly doing well considering I only acclimated them to water temp.

I accidently let the bag tip over in my tank that had the mollies in it. Where I bought them from had the mollies in a planted tank so my main concern is if any copper leaked into my tank. Any thoughts on this ?? I've came along way just to have some small stupid mistake take down the inverts and corals in my tank.

Thanks
 
I don't know much about planted tanks. Do they keep copper in there for the plants? If you are worried about it or your inverts start showing signs of stress then they make copper absorbing media you can run for a couple days.

Glad you got your lion to eat. Hopefully once he settles in he will start accepting prepair foods. Keep us updated. Also, take some pictures of him for us. They are great looking fish.
 
Okay, let him feast on live ghost shrimps awhile then dangle a dead ghost shrimps and see if he will take that. from there you are home free.
 
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