Advice for getting a volitan to eat?

cweber

cweber

New member
Well I got my black volitan home and in the tank a few days ago...but...I cant seem to get it interested in frozen food. Tonight i had my wife pick up some mollies. I seperated the new lion in a basket to try and get it to feed with no success. It looked at it a few times but no go. So then i released it from the basket to hunt and still no luck. So then i just dumped the other three mollies into the tank and my russels lion ate two. So now down to one and the volitan shows no interest. My buddy fed it three feeders last wednesday so i know it eats. Should i be worried or just give it some more time? Sorry for the long post just wanted fill you all in. Thanks for any help.
 
lions

lions

after having had a few lions over the years and one that is almost a foot long now the only food that I've had any luck changing them over with is krill.after you get them eating krill they'll eat other meaty foods.I've never had any luck with cube frozen foods of any kind .they like bigger chunks of food also.you do want to feed them a variety of food as quickly as you can.mine likes sandeels pretty good also .hope this helps Butch
 
I got my russels eating silversides and now also eats shrimp and flounder. I picked up some scallops the other day but havnt fed them yet. How long have you fed krill? Have you had any bad experiences feeding it?
 
i'd exhuast other food possibilities before trying krill, altho i'm surprised to hear it didn't rise to the mollies. that being said, it sounds like the fish is still pretty new, so it should get hungry soon.

i'm wondering what its size is compared to the russelii. is it possible that the volitans feels intimidated by the resident fish?

are there any other tankmates?

how large is the volitans...is it an adult?

how are you offering the frozen food to the fish, and what were you offering?

we find that our lions and scorps like table shrimp, red snapper and salmon as favorites, but they also get silversides, scallops, clam, squid, etc. with the exception of the silversides, we buy our fish food from the local markets.
 
My russelii is about 6 inches and the volitan is 5, both including fins.

My routine for the russelii is rotating frozen silversides, raw shrimp, flounder, and havnt tried yet, scallops. I feed every other to every 2 days.

Only fish in the tank, and its a standard 125. When i had the molly in the basket with the volitan, it kissed the molly, but didnt open up. And I know it eats because my buddy fed the day I picked it up.

Should I be worried yet? Im going to keep trying, its just hard to target the one by itself in the tank. My russelii will eat ALL the time and I'm trying to avoid that.
 
I think I'm going to catch it by hand and stick a piece of fish down its throat. Anyone think that will work? lol. I think it may be some stress from the russelii that was already in the tank. My wife said she saw them back to back with spines ready to fire. I put the russelii in the basket for a little while and moved a couple rocks around. How long can they go without eating before it becomes a problem?
 
cweber,

If your Volitan does not eat within two weeks, I might start to get worried. But for now, just be patient. The addition of a new lionfish into the tank probably contributes quite a bit to the stress factor - especially if the Black Volitan you just added is smaller than your Russle's. These fish aren't dumb, and when they finally realize they need food they will quit worrying and eat something.

I currently have a 7" Volitan Lionfish and he's a pig. My LFS owner told me he was the most active and hungry Lionfish he'd ever seen. I put his word to the test after adding him to my tank. Within 20 minutes of being acclimated I had him eating frozen cubed brine shrimp right out of my hand. I couldn't believe it. I try to mix up his diet between feeder goldfish, krill, brine shrimp and mysis shrimp. He'll eat anything though. In fact, he recently devoured my 6 inch pink spotted watchman goby. (RIP Goby Bryant). I couldn't believe it. The goby was as long as the body of my Volitan Lionfish! It looked like he had swallowed a shot glass because the goby was doubled over inside him. Insane...This just goes to show that Lionfish are opportunistic eaters, especially if caught from the wild. They rarely pass up an opportunity to fill their stomachs because they don't know when they might get a chance to eat again.

That being said. Just give him some time. Keep putting food in the tank - but no more than your Russle's can eat - and eventually he won't be able to say no. His stress levels should subside within a few more days when he gets used to his new home.
 
Thank you very much for your response. You give me hope. Its been about a week and a hlaf since he ate last. Im going to release my russelii now.
 
You guys might want to do a search on Lions and the feeding of krill , not good for the lion in the long run .

stubby

goldfish are not good either .
 
Last edited:
Stubby,

Why is krill bad for lions? I haven't heard of that before. Should I stop giving my lion krill altogether?

I know feeder goldfish aren't the best, but i feel like he deserves a live meal to stalk and hunt every once and a while...even if its pretty easy for him because they cant breathe.
 
I have read on the forum here that krill may be possibly linked to lockjaw in lions . Which if my understanding of it is correct it impairs they ability to eat . You might try a search or you could contact namxas as he and a few others are resident lion guru's here . I have a dwarf fuzzy and I had a volitan . The volitan was fed a diet of basically krill for about 8mo and stopped eating , tried other foods he would try to eat he finally died . I only found out about the krill after it had died . I don't know 100% that is why it died .
I don't feed krill anymore.


stubby
stubby
 
OU Pilot-
if you search for lockjaw and krill and pufferqueen you'll read a nice long thread about stories (antecdotal~lots of them) of hobbyists who fed large portions of krill to their puffers or predatory fishes. The end result is lockjaw and anorexia.
 
cweber,
I think I'll give those a try. BUT as a college student on a semi tight budget, I'm going to try and limit myself to treating my pig of a lionfish (who ate my 6 inch pink spotted watchman goby! damn him!). After eating $30 worth of fish in my tank that i was almost positive couldn't fit into his mouth, he can go without a few treats for a while and suck it up to some frozen stuff! haha....he will definitely see some ghost shrimp though.
 
I will probably give mine mollies every great once and a while, but mostly frozen. I have read that mollies or ghost shrimp are better than the goldies, but still not healthy. At the same time though, I read where its healthy to stimulate their hunting skills by a live treat. Sorry to hear about your goby. I think if they are determined to eat something they will. My russels eats silversides that are just over half his length. I usually cut them up though.
 
When we had our old lion fish he grew up to be huge probably 5 inches. Some how my mom got the lionfish on pellets but also fed him live food from time to time and that took awhile then sadly he died of old age i guess. We got another lion fish he's probably 2 inches and we may put him on pellets and feed him li food from time to time.
 
Well today has been two weeks since it ate last. I tried feeding last night and it looked interested a couple times but no strike. Im going to get some mollies tommorrow and try live food again.
 
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