Tell me what you know about my lionfish

[Animal-Chin]

Just picked up a dwarf lionfish. so far he'll only eat live food, any tips for getting him on frozen? I don't mind feeding him live but i hear its not great for him...

 

[Brock]

When I had a dwarf lion, I fed live like you did, and slowly weaned him off of it onto silversides. I would buy a pack of frozen silversides and thaw out a whole one, or half of one depending on size of the dwarf lion. Id hold it in the tank, and wiggle it around, or at least try to, like a normal fish would move. It took some getting used to for it, but eventually it warmed up to me and he started grabbing them.

 

[Animal-Chin]

did you hold the silversides with your fingers or on a stick or something?

 

[needmorecowbell]

If your feeding goldies or something, don't, it's just asking for diseases. Try making some food, go to a grocer or something and get some shrimp, cod, really anything and everything. Add a few drops of garlic and freeze it. Try feeding a few chunks of that, if it doesn't work I would do live brine if its small enough to eat it and slowly lean him to frozen foods.

 

[needmorecowbell]

did you hold the silversides with your fingers or on a stick or something?

Do it on a stick, just like any other aggressive fish. Companies sell long tweezers that get the job done. Beautiful fish btw.

 

[Animal-Chin]

ya i've been trying chunks of raw shrimp on a stick but he doesnt react at all. he usually turns his back on me actually. when i throw a zebra danio in there he tracks and attacks. i'll keep trying with the frozen until i get it though....

 

[Hondatek]

Try whole frozen krill. Not the cubes kind. That's how I got my zebra lion to switch .

 

[Brock]

did you hold the silversides with your fingers or on a stick or something?

I should have used a stick, but I just used my fingers instead. With them being long pieces, there was enough distance to keep my fingers from his mouth. With me feeding like this, he eventually figured out the big hand was going to feed him. After a while, I could put my hand on the glass, and he'd swim up to it, knowing he'd be fed soon.

 

[AquariumAddiction]

I could not get my dwarf to eat until I bought some ghost shrimp. They really like the movement. One thing I did to get him to eat frozen was drop some silversides in front of a powerhead. The silverside wiggles down to him and he gobbles them up. Another thing I did was use a long stick and drop the food close to him. Now he recognizes me approaching the tank and swims into postion like Pavlof's dog.