lionfish weened

[rayn]

When is a lion actually considered weened off live food? I started feeding mine with a skewer for about a week, then last nigt dropped half a silverside in and he took it immediately. So is he weened now, or does it take some actual time? I want him fully weened before adding him to the DT.

 

[StephLionfish]

I think you can go ahead and put him in the display tank.You can wait a day or two more, just to see if he still takes the silverside if you want. But, you said he took the frozen food for a week? I wouldn't worry about him going back to "live food only". In my experience, once they realize that "dead" food tastes good, they never turn it down. Oh, and good job weening him off live, it can be tough!

 

[rayn]

I fed him live ghost shrimp for about two weeks, just to make sure he was healthy and eating. Then I started trying krill or silversides on a skewer. Took a couple tries the first time to keep his interest, but after the first he has always come back. Last night he took two silverside halves, both off the same fish, and a piece of krill. Only thing was that if he doesn't see it at the very beginning, he won't search it out yet. It just falls to the bottom and I have to try and regain his interest in it.

 

[namxas]

Being weaned has nothing to do with tossing a chunk of food into the tank and having the fish eat it, but rather, the fish's willingness to take non-living foods. We target feed all of our Scorpaeniformes with a modified feeding stick. This way, we're sure the fish is eating, and we can control exactly what and how much they eat (this is especially important if your lion will have tankmates, as some species can suffer from food competition).

Your goal now is to get your lion used to eating a varied diet of SW fish flesh (cod, salmon, tuna, snapper, etc), shell-on raw table shrimp, squid, lobster, silversides, etc. All of these foods are surprisingly inexpensive when purchased in small amounts from your grocer's seafood counter or local fish market. Experiment, try what's on sale and see what your fish likes.

If you feed krill, it needs to be done very sparingly, and only as part of a varied diet as previously described. A diet high in krill has been linked to lockjaw in many predatory species, especially lionfish. Personally, there are so many other good foods out there, we prefer not to use krill at all.

Finally, feeding a single food too long typically results in the lionfish refusing to eat at some point, which is another reason for varying its diet.

We feed 3x a week until the fish have a modest "belly bulge", and remember, lions prefer smaller food items to larger ones.

HTH

 

[rayn]

I was hoping you would chime in. Thanks for the info and I will vary the diet. The krill has only been twice now total, the rest have been silversides. I need to get some other seafood to vary it now.

As for the cod, salmon, and other fish should it be fresh or packaged type? Does the package type have additives that I wouldn't want to feed? Target feeding in the DT isn't a big deal, that is what I do now with some of my other fish.

 

[namxas]

Fresh or "fresh frozen" is fine. Note that salmon sometimes does have food coloring to make it a pretty orange color, but that's no problem.

Another reason for target feeding is that if you have a tank of aggressive feeders, one might try to dive in front of a lion and get accidentally skewered for its gluttony. I've actually had this happen, and lost the "skeweree", but the lion was fine.