My lion fish...?

Question

I have a volital (sp?) lionfish. We had him a week and he didn't eat the sinking pellets that we had. So we went to the fish store and he suggested feeder guppies, so we got six of them and he ate them ALL!!! How many should we give him at a time and how often? I also don't want to go to the store everyday to get more. How do you "store" live feeder guppies? I don't know anything about this stuff, so any and all advise will be greatly appreciated. When we bought the lionfish, another gentleman at the store said that he would eat the pellets, but he was apparantly wrong. Thank you!!!

Thank you for your answers, except wise guy about the hand feeding ; ) but how do you store them? Should I get one of those betta bowls with the filters on them, or would a regular bowl just work. I HAVE NO CLUE!!!

Answer 1

You actually do not need to feed him every day. I own 2 Dwarf zebra lionfish, and as I cannot get them changed over to frozen food, they currently are still eating ghost shrimp. I've owned these 2 for almost a year. They get fed 1 time a week. Thats all they need. Make sure not to overfeed as they will eat till they die. Hope this helps. Lions are very interesting fish.

Answer 2

Congradulation and You didn't know this up front?

Your Volitan Lionfish, which they should have told you at the store, will probably not eat pellets. They are meat eaters. I am assuming you have him in a larger salt tank. Don't forget he is Venomous.

I have converted my puffers to brine shrimp. This could be another way to go. Since your lion needs meat and is strictly a Carnivore I would try to get him on the brine....frozen or fresh. You can actually add a brine shrimp hatcher inside your tank so your fish can munch at his leasure.

If you put 6 guppies in his tank every day, he will eat 6 guppies every day. You need to move to a bigger fish, such as feeder gold fish.

I would suggest, feeding him 4 or 5 feeder gold fish then adding 5 female black mollies and 1 black mollie to his tank (Yes mollies and guppies are salt or fresh water fish). Since the mollies are live bearers, your fish will have a constant supply of fresh food and the mollies reproduce so quickly this is an almost balanced tank.

My other suggestion would be to, either set up a 20 gallon (fresh or salt doesn't matter) and buy 30 guppies and let them breed. Acutually I would still go with the black mollies. Guppies are way too small and it would take way too many of them for your lion to have a good meal. You can always use a 10 gallon for just gold feeders. they will also breed in the 10-20 gallon tank. This is the easiest way to tell you to care for your lion. You may however get lucky with the brine shrimp and not have to worry about the guppies/feeders. Buy them as a treat once in a while. He will still get his recomended proteins and I am sure will remain healthy and happy.

Answer 3

the trouble with "feeder" fish is they don't always offer the entire nutritional needs your fish requires. And can in fact harm them. It is hard to wean them on to the food you want them to eat, but it's a necessity!!

i found this information from a keeper of a volitans lionfish:

These fish can be difficult to wean to frozen food. When you first get it feed it live ghost shrimp at first. When it recognizes you as a feeder and will eat ghost shrimp readily you can start to try silversides soaked in garlic. When you get it on a regular schedule you can stop feeding ghost shrimp except as a treat. A good diet would include silversides and krill soaked in a multivitamin. You can also supplement this diet with cocktail shrimp, scallops, squid( not too often), and any other fresh seafood you can find. A very important feeding rule is NEVER feed freshwater feeders such as goldfish, guppies, rosey reds, etc. These fish cause fatty liver disease down the road and will kill your fish.

Answer 4

Don't touch the fish because you will hurt yourself big time. It is worse then a bee sting and if you are allergic to its sting you have to go to the hospital in a rush. We have a 10 gallon tank where we keep our feeder fish so we dont' have to go to the store all the time. It's best to feed the fish every other day. If you feed it to much it will grow to fast and then you need a bigger tank. It is very hard to feed a lion fish frozen food, unless you are able to do that when they are very small and they had never eaten a life fish. Guppy's are to small though.

Answer 5

Try mollies they can survive longer in salt water, They should be feed once every other day. For sure they won't eat pellets.

Also try grabbing him with your hand so he can be hand fed!!!

Answer 6

you can put as many in the tank at a time as you want, they will only eat so many at a time, just buy extras, maybe enough for a week at a time

Answer 7

dont know for sure but dont give him too much its bad