Lionfish breakthrough

[Flame*Angel]

I am so ecstatic I just have to share this with someone. I've had Leo, a very small baby volitans lionfish, in my 20g quarantine tank since October 14th, trying to wean him off live ghost shrimp and onto frozen foods. I had begun to think that I had the worlds most stubborn lionfish. At one point he went a whole week without eating and was obviously weak rather than eat something that wasn't a live ghost shrimp.

I gave up on him for a while but the stores are all out of ghost shrimp for the holidays and aren't getting any more until next Friday. Leo hadn't eaten anything for a few days although I've been offering him PE Mysis and some really big frozen plankton I found. I decided to give krill one more try. This time I just thawed it in some hot tap water and used a pair of big plastic yellow tweezers I have. I wiggled a piece in the water and he came up and grabbed it! I couldn't believe it! He ate them until his belly was swollen with them!

This is the first breakthrough I've had with this fish. I suspect that the hot water was what made the difference. Live food would be warm and perhaps warm food gives off more of an odour.

WOOHOOOO!!!

[sara]

Congratulations!! That's wonderful news!

[reefmutt]

NICE!! You deserve a little break after all the crap. congrats!

[One Salty Dog]

YES .. Some good and welcome new for you Susan. Hope he stays on it.
Rob

[CAT]

That is great news.

An encouraging story for you: I spoke to an m.o. guy several years ago because I was interested in a lionfish for my FOwlR but I wanted one that was trained to frozen food already - he didn't have any, but told me that he used to babysit a customers' marine fish sometimes when the guy was away. This customer turned up one time with a bunch of fish, including a Volitans, some fish food and a bag of doggie kibbles... you guessed it, the dummy was feeding the lion the dog food. Not good for the lion, but I guess some Lionfish will eat anything once they're trained. LOL

Hope your little guy has turned a corner.

[steve666]

congrats susan, i'm happy for you both!

[Flame*Angel]

OMG Cat, I've heard of people feeding lionfish a lot of things that aren't great for them - goldfish, even hamburger meat - but dog biscuits? Yeesh.

I have indeed heard that once they are trained to eat they will eat just about anything. Their appetite is just unbelievable, you almost have to see it to believe how much they will eat. A varied diet is important but I'm pretty sure they mean from marine fare

[volitan]

wow.....anybody feeding dog buicuits to their fish doesnt deserverve or should have the privilage of caring for any animals.....

Im very happy for you..and leo..takes a while sometimes to get them used to the frozen stuff but worth the efforts...what else so you ahve in there with him?

[Flame*Angel]

He's in the 20g quarantine tank with Saffon, the marine betta. They will be moving to the 75g which I wanted to be their predator tank but it's a hospital tank for now. They are about the same size now although Saffron was bigger when I got him. It's really amazing how fast volitans grow!

He was such a baby when I got him that he could only eat the smaller ghost shrimp. I wonder if the really small ones are just too young to eat frozen food?

I just fed him krill again. He saw me coming with the tweezers and immediately went into his "I'm gonna eat" dance - before I even got to the tank. He ate a belly full again and is now parading around the tank showing off his beautiful fins. I figure I'll feed him krill for a few more days just to be sure he's going to stay with the program and then start trying him with scallops and tiger shrimp for some variety. I really love being able to just feed him with the plastic tweezers, it's very easy and so satisfying to feel him tug the food from them.

Now if I could only get the marine betta to eat. So far all he's eaten for me is ghost shrimp.