foo man choo Lion
- Thread starter jnewman
- Start date
one of the "difficult" lionfish. they stay small, less than 5 inches. Fu Manchu lions can be hard to wean to frozen. they hunt on the bottom. If you have aggressive feeders in your tank, a Fu Manchu may not be a good choice, they aren't good food competitors. I see them as better for a smaller species-type tank. if you have a healthy one available locally, that's good - they can be poor shippers. I'd be sure you get a chance to see it eat before buying it.
I'd see what/if it eats in the LFS. I'd hold off on buying it until you see it eat. I had one that ate frozen, but that is often the exception. I'd offer salt-acclimated, gut-loaded ghost shrimp and feeder guppies. you still need to be careful of aggressive feeder tankmates, even the non-predators, like tangs or angels. these fish are ambush predators and not at all aggressive eaters. I have Hawaiian leaf fish, which I consider to be similar in some ways. they can't out-compete much of anything for food. I keep them with seahorses, small blennies and an orchid dottyback.
you might want to read this on lionfish, and particularly the section on keeping Fu Man CHus http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-11/fm/feature/index.php
