Lionfish in a reef?

[Sitarangi]

I keep a 3" fu-manchu in a 29g with a bristletail filefish, ocellaris pair, bangaii pair, dragon sifter, sixline, and tailspot blenny. No problems as they are very shy animals. I believe my success has to do with keeping the lion well fed and accepting frozen foods out of the water column. I have noticed a significant decrease in my peppermint shrimp population :x

 

[Big E]

so then if i added a pair of maroons (and maybe a RBTA) before/together/after adding a fu would it work? im thinking its a maybe but im not sure. the clowns are 3-4" i would say.

The male maroon stays small, he'd be at risk. At 8 years mine was at most 2 1/2" & the female was 5".

 

[tasha6]

Here is what we did so we could have the lions and the clowns with their anemone. The 2 volitains went into the main display, which is a reef. The clowns and the LTA went into our refugium, best of both worlds.

I love the lions, they are so peaceful just float and hovering in the water and do not cause any issues with others unless they are snack size.

 

[Rileys Reef]

A lion that is fed the right foods and stays full wont look to eat tankmates. But not all of them think alike. Of all my lions they have never eaten any tankmates even a tiny high hat gets ignored because the lions diet is better than the hi hat. Plus the lion knows he has food coming in the evening everyday. As far as my reef they tend to sometimes brush their fins over the corals but they open back up when he moves.

 

[PDAlber]

Something else to consider with the Volitans is that they get big and grow VERY fast. I had a pair in my predator tank that I caught when they were small (there's more and more of them on the reefs in S Florida). Feeding them every 2-3 days, they out grew the tank in less than a year. Since they're becoming so common, I had trouble just giving them away. Awesome fish though.

 

[namxas]

so then if i added a pair of maroons (and maybe a RBTA) before/together/after adding a fu would it work? im thinking its a maybe but im not sure. the clowns are 3-4" i would say.

Unless you happen to obtain a Fu that's already weaned, I strongly recommend keeping it on its own until it can be conditioned and weaned. D. biocellatus can be stubborn when it comes to weaning them off of live food, and IMHO, the fewer distractions it has, the better.

Fu Manchus are great fish, but would suffer from bullying and/or food competition. Our fu shares its digs with a small female red-finned waspfish and a Caracanthus madagascarensis "coral croucher". All are weaned to take food from a modified feeding stick.

 

[drainbamage101]

My 34 gallon has a dwarf lion in it, along with a coris wrasse, scopas tang, and a mandarin dragonet. At one point I also had a stonefish in there, one of the semi-lethal varieties. Just can't keep tiny little stuff in there, but he doesn't mess with anything that's 3/4 of his size or larger. He takes down silversides, but they need be torn in half, and at that I've gone for periods feeding him only mysis shrimp or comparable sized foods, and he was unable to take down any large food until he had been weaned back up to that size.

As far as having him in a reef tank making it interesting to work on the tank....this is true. I've yet to get stung by him in over a year of having him, but he is incredibly friendly and tends to sit right where I'm about to work. He's used to my hands in the tank though, and doesn't get ornery, so I'm usually able to shoo him around with my hands. It gets annoying sometimes though as he is used to eating out of the tongs, so anytime he sees something shiny he chases after it. Makes fragging with clipps very interesting.

 

[palmer373]

hmmm so namxas do you think it would work to put the maroons and RBTA in AFTER the fu is weaned?

 

[Grebex11]

I'm thinking now about probably getting a fuzzy dwarf lion. Then just getting one about 4 inch tomato clown and an anemone for it. Then I will just keep a couple bigger tangs I think. I saw a pair at the store and the male tomato clown was only about 2.5 inches. So I don't think I would feel safe with a pair of clowns. The female was atleast 4", bigger than the fuzzy lion. It won't be a pair of clowns, but atleast I'll have one and the anemone.

 

[velvetelvis]

My 34 gallon has a dwarf lion in it, along with a coris wrasse, scopas tang, and a mandarin dragonet.

All in a 34? Wow!

 

[namxas]

hmmm so namxas do you think it would work to put the maroons and RBTA in AFTER the fu is weaned?

IMHO, the fu would have a better chance than the other way around. I still don't trust clowns tho...don't like 'em, don't trust 'em...

 

[Robka]

Something else to consider with the Volitans is that they get big and grow VERY fast. I had a pair in my predator tank that I caught when they were small (there's more and more of them on the reefs in S Florida). Feeding them every 2-3 days, they out grew the tank in less than a year. Since they're becoming so common, I had trouble just giving them away. Awesome fish though.

They are actually an invasive species to Florida, so the more you take out of the ocean in FL the better. They were accidentally introduce a while back and with no natural predators in the area, they are wiping out local fish species.

 

[PDAlber]

Oh, I know. They're becoming more and more common too. My buddy was diving in the Bahamas a few weeks ago. Over there, he said there were two lionfish on every coral head. Here in S. FL, there's a "Eat a Lionfish" campaign and lionfish derbies, where the winner kills the most lions. I've caught a few, but its hard to even give them away.

 

[pipebash]

How do dwarf lions do in a tank with high flow?

 

[namxas]

How do dwarf lions do in a tank with high flow?

If you're creative with how you set up the flow, there are generally no issues. What you don't want is a strong laminar flow that is going to plaster your fish against the tank. You need to have higher flow where it's needed and some calmer areas where you don't need a lot of flow.

 

[HorsePower]

How do dwarf lions do in a tank with high flow?

They should be good, mine does fine in a semi high flow tank...