dwarf fuzzy lionfish

[regtur]

Ok I found this guy amazing within a week he comes when I approach tank and just about allows hand feeding minnows( I use tweezers on tail of food) the fish is very young, my question is can I have two in one 90g bow front. he is the only fish in the tank full of corals.

[JohnniG]

They are indeed amazing. Love them. I think you can have two.

[madweazl]

They will literally come into your hand after time. Quite docile and dont fear much of anything. Do remember that they can fit anything smaller than them in their mouth though...

[nereefpat]

Yes if they are different sexes. Males have bigger heads, more stripes on pectoral fins, and longer pectoral fins.

And please don't feed them minnows.

[cougareyes]

My 90 reef; fuzzy, fu man chu, zebra, antenatta. They hang out together all the time. They been in this tank for about 8 months, the fuzzy and fu were in a 30g together for 2 years previously. I don't think it would matter if it were 2 fuzzys. I seen at lfs multiple fuzzys in the same tank and never any aggression, although I know it was only temporary.

[regtur]

sorry internet down here, why not minnows that's what the Petco sells he's to small for the red comets yet and that's what they were feeding him

[slay]

They do best on a diet of mixed seafood preferably marinated in a vitamin mix like Selcon. I feed my Volitans chunks of various shellfish and fish (since your lion is a fraction of the size of mine, I'd try things like silversides and krill).

It's easier on you to get them on a diet of foods you can freeze, and freshwater fish aren't part of their normal diet, tho the main concern everyone has is typically with goldfish and fatty liver disease.

[nereefpat]

sorry internet down here, why not minnows that's what the Petco sells he's to small for the red comets yet and that's what they were feeding him

Too fatty. I agree with slay's suggestions, especially mysis and krill. It should eat pellets too, in time.

[cougareyes]

It will be great if you are able to wean your fuzzy to a variety of dead food. Fuzzys are not volitans, they are harder to get to eat dead food. Sometimes they are never able to be weaned, sometimes you will get them weaned then they just stop eating. You'll see the occasional post of how easy it was, talk to them in 2 years, or even a year. I've had mine for going on 3 years, I feed my lion tank 80 percent "live"; gut loaded and vitamin tanked ghost shrimp, an occasional peppermint shrimp(once a month), breed sw mollies(not for me), did the qt damsels and chromis(not for me). Sometimes they take something dead, usually when I first start to feed if they good and hungry. As soon as they figure it out, it's done. Alot of people stop there and think the lion is full, he's not; you need to see a little bulge in the belly. The dwarfs are tricky, if you find "honest" information, most will tell you that to keep them long term you will be feeding live.

[cougareyes]

Too fatty. I agree with slay's suggestions, especially mysis and krill. It should eat pellets too, in time.

A fuzzy dwarf would have to eat 1000 mysis a week to maintain, and I can't see no possible way one would ever eat a pellet.

[nereefpat]

Mine would eat pellets and flakes, could be an anomaly I guess.

I believe the first non-live thing I got him to eat was uncooked frozen cocktail shrimp on a feeding stick. Was pretty entertaining to watch him chase down mysis.

[cougareyes]

One of the top lfs here stop bringing them in; the owner said "they always die". He got tired of his customers coming in after they would die in a month , the customers would always say oh yeah he was eating, he ate what i fed my tank; mysis, flake, pellets, etc. Problem was it was just tid bits, not enough to sustain him. A customer would get him to take one chunk of something and consider him fed. A customer would not feed live to wean him to dead food, and out of the blue he died. The owner of lfs concluded that people were not able to get them to eat enough dead food food to keep them alive. Blue Zoo Aquatics won't guarantee them because of their challenging feeding habits. People are ashamed to admit they starved their little lion to death.

[nereefpat]

I'm glad the store quit selling them to those who weren't meeting their requirements.

That's too bad though. There is no excuse for letting your fish starve if it's eating, and especially if it's eating prepared foods.

How many times a week do you feed your lions?

[cougareyes]

I'm not all right, I'm just doing the best I can. It would be great to get my lions weaned to prepared foods. I just know from my experience and feed back from the lfs that most of them never get weaned and many just starve to death. I feed them every other day and sometimes I skip an extra day. In the wild they tend to feast like pigs then not eat. How long between I don't know, I feed them until I see a good size bulge in their bellies. They come right up to me like little puppies, sometimes when one gets full he'll just cruise to a perch somewhere, sometimes they just seems endlessly gluttonous. It's like they see color also, they will not eat a pink shrimp, like krill or a ghostie after it's been dead for a while, it's like they know it's dead.

[nereefpat]

Nice. Good info and discussion.

Edit: it may have sounded like I was referring to you and your lions starving. Not the case at all. It sounds like you take great care in feeding your fish.

[EGS25]

This is a great resource thanks everyone! Hope this question isn't too obvious, but how often do you buy your live food / how long do you keep it around? I was hoping to be able to visit the local market once a week to buy various types of food that I could feed over the following week.

[cougareyes]

I keep a 10g with a sponge filter and buy ghosties once sometimes twice a week, visiting lfs anyway. I dose the tank with vita-chem and feed a variety of marine flake and small pellet food. If you plan to feed something else let me know; I've fed anglers guppies and mollies(not minnows or goldies) but there are precautions you'd have to take for chance of internal parasites. Keeping a tank for chromis or damsels would be expensive and high maintenance, you'd have to qt.

[EGS25]

Sounds simple enough! Will also have a snowflake eel in the tank, so hopefully they can piggy back off each other in terms of food. Definitely won't go high maintenance enough to feed chormis/damsels. Do you ever do squid/lobster/clam?

[Python73]

Has anyone considered raising killies as food? East coast folk use them for flounder (fluke) fishing and call them all sorts of names, most common would be "mud minnows" or "mummichogs." They are a proper saltwater/brackish food as opposed to goldfish or guppies or other freshwater minnows. They are very hardy and pretty easy to raise from what I've seen and read.

I wouldn't buy them from a bait store and feed them directly, or even if I caught them. But you could certainly set up a small tank/QT system for them and then feed them after a few days. Might be worth a try.

Also, if you are coastal and can spend 5 minutes learning to throw a cast net, you can get fresh mullet and menhaden for free much of the year.

[JaimeAdams]

I had a tank full of fuzzy dwarfs. A fuzzy dwarf lion is what got me into the hobby. I didn't find it all that hard to wean them to fresh or frozen sea food. For awhile I would cut pieces and just tangle it in the top of the tank. They certainly want to see it moving. You can't simply toss chunks of sea food in the tank and expect them to go after it. I added a large male yellow fuzzy dwarf that would eat chopped fish, shrimp, silver sides etc that was just tossed in the tank. I believe that the other fuzzy dwarfs learned the behavior from him and they all started going after and eating with gusto chopped sea food just tossed in the tank. I had 8 of them for a long while before we moved. Just my personal experience with them.