Personal Victory

will he leave other reef fish alone now? :)

And a picture of the handsome stubborn devil:

thats sweet, i might consider getting one

Beautiful fish and tank

Justin-

just fyi, a key to my success with it all....forget the feeding stick and other devices...get a fairly large and CLEAR turkey baster, syringe.....get yourself some PE mysis, for some unknown reason other mysis wasn't as intriguing.

Adam Blundell wrote: Justin- It's been over 3 months now.... but as of today I believe my pair of lionfish both ate frozen food for the first time.  It's been a super struggle so here's to hoping they don't regurgitate the food.   I'll be forever thrilled (like you) if today is really the day. Adam

Awesome! Mine is still eating well! In fact it's better then well - he eats any thing I put in without hesitation. He's almost full size now as well.

I have wanted to keep a lionfish for a very long time. My wife tells me that it is a no until our kids grow up a bit more. Very jealous of you guys and excited that your hard work is paying off!

bur01014 wrote: just fyi, a key to my success with it all....forget the feeding stick and other devices...get a fairly large and CLEAR turkey baster, syringe.....get yourself some PE mysis, for some unknown reason other mysis wasn't as intriguing.   Get a single mysis or two sucked up in the turkey baster....put the clear portion of the baster down in the water and get that mysis moving up and down (pulsing, squeezing the baster back and forth), my lion became 100 times more intersted in the food when pulsing it around with a baster, plus since the tube was clear, it appeared to his bad eyes that there was a live mysis free swimming in the water.....after a few pulses of the mysis, expel it out of the turkey baster and watch your dwarf (or normal) lion gobble it up....   This worked for me first time I tried it....I had gone through the feeding stick, food in a net, and other techniques that failed miserably.  Even after doing this for a week or so, I would throw just mysis in and he wouldn't eat it....I needed to trigger his hunting response with something that looked live.  Needless to say, after a month of this, he has lost the need to hunt and will eat mysis/flakes from the water column that simply float around.   I wish you continued success!

You know this was like the first thing I tried and it didn't work. My lion was so friggin stubborn that at one point I was almost just going to let him starve!

Here is what finally worked for me. I wrote this up for another website to help an aquarist that was about to throw in the towel on his dwarf:

"I have a dwarf lion that I've had for about a year. They can be tough to get onto frozen food. If the LFS told you he was eating frozen they were probably lying - I never believe it unless I see it with my own eyes. Mysis are usually pretty small to feed to a lion of any size. Mine eats frozen but ignores Mysis completely. Here is what I would do (and have done to ween a few lions) -
Get some ghost shrimp. I see that you already have that planned. Ghost shrimp are fresh water so you don't need to worry about having them in a salt water tank. I just use a mason jar with an airstone in it.
Make sure you gut load the ghost shrimp before you feed. I like to use high quality pellets and a few mysis shrimp. Once the ghost shrimps bellies are no long see through you are ready. Important too that you change the water on this mason jar often as trying to gut load them can foul the water. Luckily since it's just a mason jar I usually just pour half of it out and top off with tap water. I don't take good care of the shrimp because on average they don't last longer then a few days.
I like to make a "designated" feeding net. I scoop the shrimp into it and turn the pumps off on my SW tank. I place the net by the lion and kinda wiggle it around till he notices the shrimp inside. The first week or so you do this it'll be frustraing because he may ignore the net. He may not see the shrimp till after it swims out of the net. This is OK. Keep associating the feeding net with the shrimp. Pretty soon the lion will see that net and swim up to the top to get his meal.
I feed in this manner for about 2-3 weeks. Feeding 2-3 times a week. I then FREEZE a few ghost shrimp. Simply scoop them out, place them in a plastic bag and put in freezer. When feeding to the lion defrost them in a cup of your tank water (lions can be sensitive to food temp). Your lion should eat it at this point. If for some reason he doesn't eat it SKIP a feeding. Your lion will be ok to go awhile without food - in the wild they can sometimes go up to 30 days without food - then try again on the next feeding. Basically keep doing this till he eats. Most lions I've done this on will take the first frozen one but the one I have now was super stubborn and made me skip two feedings.
Feed the frozen shrimp in the net 2-3 times. I then try to switch to silversides or other meaty frozen foods. With silver sides I cut off the head and just feed that, a whole silverside is too big for a dwarf lion so they need smaller chunks. However the first few times sometimes they won't eat it unless they can see the eyes. Save the body for later as once you get them weened they'll eat any part no matter what. Feed the silverside in the net same as the ghost shrimp. He should take it. If he doesn't skip a feeding again and try a few days later.
I prefer the net method as it's easier. You can do all the above with a feeding stick instead of net but I really don't like putting live shrimp on the feeding stick. Funny thing is I use a small white net. My lion knows when he see's that he's getting some food. I have another small blue net, if he see's that one? He ignores it. Just make sure that the net you use for feeding is only used for that. I have heard of people using the same net to put fish into the tank and well that rarely ends well.
Remember be patient! Dwarf lions can be STUBBORN! If you need to revert a step that is OK. I've had some lions eat frozen fine and some that I've had to go back a step after successfully moving forward one.
Good luck!"

So there you go. My steps to get a stubborn pain in the a** fish to eat!

Edited by Sculpin - November 14 2011 at 5:00pm