• Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.

Dwarf Lion Fish

Just wondering if anyone has one and what they feed them. I bought one at the Hidden Reef sale on Saturday, thinking he would eat a Clam/Squid mixture, like my trigger. But so far, no luck.. I've been looking for live ghost shrimp with no success.. any ideas? thanks, Salty
 
maybe try silversides or mollies or guppies...the freshwater fish wouldnt last long in saltwater,unless you slowly acclimated them which is a pain..gd luck
 
Saw the guy at Ocean Aquarium feeding them rosies. If you only drop one or two small ones in at a time, he'll eat em faster than they'll die from the saltwater. Guess you would need some sort of small freshwater tank to hold them in though. Doesn't take much for them. I swear those things could live in the toilet tank...
 

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
I fed my lion prawns, the small individually freeze dried ones. I fed him using tongs. He was a little shy so I had to fling them near him but not hold them.
 
Having NO clue what I'm talking about, but simply by going by what I've read, I wonder: Salty28, did you watch your new Dwarf Lion eat before buying him? If so, what were they feeding?
 
Wendy ,Your right . It is very important to make sure a lion fish is eating before taking him home . It can take a while to get them started . I would give the store a call to make sure it was eating and what that was . You can duplicate what they were feeding it until you can switch it over to whatever you want or have to feed it .
 
Normally I would have.. But, if you've never been to the Hidden Reef's annual sale, it's a mad house.. I'll stop by there tomorrow and see what advice the can give. With trigger's and wrasses, they usually eat anything they can get their teeth into. I sort of thought the lion would be the same. I know they swallow it whole, not sure how the wife is gonna react to me feeding it live fish. Oh well, it's the circle of life, right!
 

panmanmatt

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
What species of dwarf lion is it? Got any pictures? The reason I ask is because if you got a dwarf zebra lion there is a really good chance that it's not a dwarf but rather an antennata lion. All the supposed dwarf zebras that have come in lately are misidentified.



Lions need to be trained onto prepared foods. I haven't seen very many that take frozen foods right away and I have yet to see a LFS take the time to train them over.
 
Dwarf lionfish can be finicky eaters when you first get one. Do not feed them freshwater fish! Very bad idea. The best thing to do is to try to get them to eat frozen foods. They may not take it this food at first, so you'll need to feed live food. The best food to start with is live ghost shrimp (pumped up w selcon for nutritional value). Eventually feed frozen w/ the ghost shrimp and the lion should eat both. Eventually it will come up to you, every time you come to the tank, looking for food! Good luck.
 
I feel for you. :( I just went through a hunger strike with my coral beauty. After 17 days of starvation, she finally took a bite. Phyl also told me to try tube feeding. I can't imaging doing it with coral beauty since she is so tiny and impossible to catch, but it might work with a lion fish.

Here is a video on how to tube feed a lion fish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCsJwY7hMc4

Good luck!
 

MadReefer

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
I always started my lions off on live such as feeder guppies. They eventually, got used to the net and would eat right out of it practically. At this point I would add frozen or freeze dried krill mixed with the guppies. I would decrease the guppies and increase the other food. Lions finally would accept anything I put in the tank. This did take time like a month or more depending on individual fish.
 

reefsandrotts

NJRC Member
Get frozen prawns like Phyl said and lightly tie a piece of thread around the tail of it and let it bop around in the current he may go for that way.
And dont try to tube feed a lionfish your only asking for major problems.
 
I know when I worked an aquarium they used garlic to get picky eaters to finally take some food. I don't know if that will work with a lion fish or not, maybe someone will have experience with that.
 
Top