Shrimp sticking out of lionfish mouth

[stephent89]

I recently bought a dwarf zebra lionfish from liveaquaria. He's about 2" so he is still quite small. I fed him 2 ghost shrimp today which he ate readily. However, the last one's antenna (I guess that's what you would call it) is still slightly sticking out of his mouth after 15 min of being swallowed. Should I be concerned or is this normal?

[jarrod13]

It's fine, just be sure not to over feed it

[MrTuskfish]

I think 2 ghost shrimp is probably too much for the 2" lion to eat in a single feeding. But 15 min is way too soon to worry; he'll probably get it down. Lions will dangerously over-eat if given the chance. Food can start to decompose before its all the way in the lion's digestive system and that can be fatal. Lions are very easy to over-feed: here's a great source by two RC members: http://lionfishlair.com./

[namxas]

Jarrod and Steve are right-on...the fish will be fine, however, two "normal-size" ghosties is WAY too much for a 2" fish, altho it's great that it's eating for you so soon. For a small juvie like yours, you might do well to get it onto larger mysis amd small bits of SW fish flesh when you wean it. I recommend using a "stealth stick", esp. for small specimens (they're easily DIY'd).

If you get your ghosties from a LFS, as opposed to ordering them online, you might ask for smaller shrimp. You might even offer to pick them yourself if you know the LFS well (I've done this when the place we get feeders from is busy).

FWIW, even lionfishes in the wild will overeat, and many specimens have been found to have hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver degeneration) due to this.

I'd stick with feeding your fish 3x a week, every other day at the most, esp. if your fish is eating large prey items. The best food size is about the size of the fish's eye, BTW, as the smaller pieces digest much more readily. 4-6 pieces of food this size is a good feeding.

HTH