New Dwarf Zebra Lion

[Jeremy.XIII]

My new dwarf lionfish finally arrived today and I did my usual one hour drip acclimation. He's completely fine, that's not really what I'm worried about. He's totally beautiful looking, already found himself a cave and is hanging upside down quite happy. The question I have is this.. While he was still in the acclimation bucket, I added a live ghost shrimp to see if he would try and eat. And try he did. Multiple times he attempted to strike on the shrimp but it was too fast for him. So I killed the shrimp and placed it in front of him. He proceeded to flare like he was going to strike and then turned his back on it. Long story short, he never ate but I feel he's hungry because of the striking and have no way of knowing when he was last fed. Any advice from current dwarf owners?

[FishInABarrel]

A stealth stick is a good way to ween lions off of live food. That's what I did with my fu manchu. Took him 3 weeks or so before he would eat whatever was put in there. My fuzzy dwarf was eating frozen when I got it.
But here's how I did it anyway for the fu manchu.
I started with live ghost shrimp that I would try and let out of the net close to the lion. After a bit he knew the net meant food.
Next step was dead ghost shrimp on the stealth stick till he had that down.
After that was pieces of raw table shrimp on the stealth stick.
After that I gave him table shrimp with tongs and would let it go where it would float towards the lion. Now he will take food off the water surface and is always waiting at feeding time.

[Jeremy.XIII]

Okay, that sounds like a plan. Where can I order a stealth stick from? I'll try another live ghost tomorrow. I was kind of worried about letting one go in the tank because he was having trouble catching it in the bucket.. We'll see what happens.

[FishInABarrel]

It's easy to make. A piece of 1/8" acrylic rod or something with a little bit of heavy fishing line glued to the end. Then you can stick the dead shrimp on the fishing to make it move and look more appetizing.
If you do a search you can find DIY instructions.
I did use my stealth stick to chase the shrimp back toward the lion if it got away from him. If I could anyway.

[Jeremy.XIII]

Okay, I'll do that. Thanks a lot!

[Jeremy.XIII]

Has your dwarf ever floated around the tank in the currents? Mine just let go of the rock he was on and was being blown around all over the place. From afar it looked like he was dead but he's breathing normally and it the current pushed him to the sand and he stabilized he would slowly swim back up into the current.. I currently have him in a net because I didn't want him to get sucked onto a pump..

[Jeremy.XIII]

Bump

[Jeremy.XIII]

Well now I just found him dead. That was random.. Mouth wide open. I'm so sad & confused.

[snorvich]

Well now I just found him dead. That was random.. Mouth wide open. I'm so sad & confused.

Most likely a problem with acclimation. Drip acclimation with a fish shipped from another location is not desirable due to ammonia poisoning. The fish should be temperature acclimated than placed into water that matches the SG of the shipping water. sorry for your loss.