Considering a FO pred tank....

[Jedi1199]

Ok, This is absurd since I am still working on my 55G reef setup, but I am thinking a 120 Pred tank would be awesome too. FAR less concern about water parameters than a reef, MUCH less equipment yadda yadda..

My question is: I want to have at least 1 Humu Humu trigger, 1 lionfish, and if possible a snowflake eel. Also would like a small blue spot grouper. Anyone have ideas to augment this? or a glaring problem with my choices?

 

[Mical]

Only issue I can speak of is, most lionfish need to be fed live food (ghost shrimp etc..) Are you willing to feed live daily?

 

[Jedi1199]

Only issue I can speak of is, most lionfish need to be fed live food (ghost shrimp etc..) Are you willing to feed live daily?

Do you mean I would need to keep a separate tank to sustain the food source? Daily feeding is not an issue. Part of the joy I get from my tanks has always been watching them eat.

 

[Mical]

Do you mean I would need to keep a separate tank to sustain the food source? Daily feeding is not an issue. Part of the joy I get from my tanks has always been watching them eat.

Either that or daily trips to LFS for food source. I had lions previously and IME would only eat live food - it got old chasing down ghost shrimp every other day.

 

[DaddyFish]

I second the caution on the Lionfish. I've heard they can be trained to eat frozen, but I had zero success doing so in a mixed/community environment. I gave away a gorgeous Mombasa Lionfish to a friend who attempted to keep in a dedicated tank without live food. It ate for a while but eventually died, presumably of starvation.

 

[Jedi1199]

OK so a dedicated food source tank it is!!.. My nearest LFS that even stocks SW of any kind is a 45 mile drive...

Any recommendations for size? How much should I buy for say a 2 week supply? Will they breed in a tank and replenish themselves or will I need to plan a regular trip to the LFS for food?

 

[Jeffcb]

Sound cool!

 

[DaddyFish]

I'm currently running what would be considered a 90-gal Community Predator tank on a canister filtration system. So I can offer some things to consider...

First, I love predators like puffers and eels. In my 90-gal I have a Dogface Puffer, Porcupine Puffer, Valentini Puffer, Snowflake Eel and more. But I'm also running a $600 canister system, with UV and large HOB refugium modified to be a hybrid fuge/algae scrubber. Most predators are messy eaters, the porc is the worst!, a total pig! You need serious filtration to manage the waste and serious nutrient export mechanisms for nitrate, or you will be changing water twice per week.

Stay away from reef lighting or anything close. If you want the look of corals use fakies, there are some nice ones but they aren't cheap. IMO they are worth it for a Predator DT.

If a predator tank is what you want, go for it!!! You don't have to worry about so many water parameters, but you DO have to worry a lot about a couple of them (pH, Ammonia, Nitrate, Phosphate, Salinity and water Clarity).

 

[DaddyFish]

OK so a dedicated food source tank it is!!.. My nearest LFS that even stocks SW of any kind is a 45 mile drive...

Any recommendations for size? How much should I buy for say a 2 week supply? Will they breed in a tank and replenish themselves or will I need to plan a regular trip to the LFS for food?

I had to use Rosy Red Minnows from a local LFS. I had to go every 7-10 days and buy 20. My tap water is whole-house carbon filtered so I was able to flush the bait bucket every couple days to keep them alive without equipment.
The problem I ran into was my intention was for a Predator Community Tank, not a Lionfish Tank. Eventually the other tankmates, triggers and puffers, became better hunter-killers than the Lionfish and they too wanted live food, refusing to eat pellets or frozen. I was not able to support that and also travel for work.

You should be able to keep Lionfish and Eels in the same tank, as long as you keep the eels well fed. But if you take a vacation of more than 2-3 days and the eels get hungry, carnage will ensue.

 

[DaddyFish]

I found this link for general information on keeping and breeding Rosy Reds... in case you want to have your own food source. I think the challenge is they typically only spawn once per year. At 20-feeders per Lionfish per week, you'll need about 100-gals of feeder fish tank per Lionfish to sustain his food source. That's going to get expensive to maintain.

So you keep one Lionfish in a 55-gal and use the 100-gal to raise his food!

 

[Jedi1199]

I'm currently running what would be considered a 90-gal Community Predator tank on a canister filtration system. So I can offer some things to consider...

First, I love predators like puffers and eels. In my 90-gal I have a Dogface Puffer, Porcupine Puffer, Valentini Puffer, Snowflake Eel and more. But I'm also running a $600 canister system, with UV and large HOB refugium modified to be a hybrid fuge/algae scrubber. Most predators are messy eaters, the porc is the worst!, a total pig! You need serious filtration to manage the waste and serious nutrient export mechanisms for nitrate, or you will be changing water twice per week.

Stay away from reef lighting or anything close. If you want the look of corals use fakies, there are some nice ones but they aren't cheap. IMO they are worth it for a Predator DT.

If a predator tank is what you want, go for it!!! You don't have to worry about so many water parameters, but you DO have to worry a lot about a couple of them (pH, Ammonia, Nitrate, Phosphate, Salinity and water Clarity).

I used to have a niger trigger in my tank back before I went back to freshwater. I remember them to be very messy eaters.. they chew up the food rather than swallow it whole.. fun to watch, messy to clean

 

[DaddyFish]

I used to have a niger trigger in my tank back before I went back to freshwater. I remember them to be very messy eaters.. they chew up the food rather than swallow it whole.. fun to watch, messy to clean

I have a Niger Trigger too. He's small right now. He replaced a much larger Niger Trigger that suddenly one day, decided to eat the clowns he had been living with for over a year. He literally choked on the bigger clown and died.

Please believe me when I say, the Niger is a dainty clean precious little pretend tea-sipping child when compared to the sweaty, hairy, bone-throwing beast of the porcupine puffer.

 

[Jedi1199]

Please believe me when I say, the Niger is a dainty clean precious little pretend tea-sipping child when compared to the sweaty, hairy, bone-throwing beast of the porcupine puffer.

That seriously cracked me up.. Thank you so much for the good laugh!!!

 

[flyguy13]

I’ve had a volitan with snowflake eel and a panther grouper in a 120. And a fuzzy in a mixed reef in the past, never had to feed live. Fed silversides and wiggled with fishing line. Feeding time was always awesome with those guys

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Ok, This is absurd since I am still working on my 55G reef setup, but I am thinking a 120 Pred tank would be awesome too. FAR less concern about water parameters than a reef, MUCH less equipment yadda yadda..

My question is: I want to have at least 1 Humu Humu trigger, 1 lionfish, and if possible a snowflake eel. Also would like a small blue spot grouper. Anyone have ideas to augment this? or a glaring problem with my choices?

I think everyone is really overcomplicating things here. I haven't had any issues feeding any of your planned fish frozen food. I recommend seafood from the grocery store, not the lfs. But live food really should still be a big part of their diets. Mollies and ghost shrimp are great. Both can breed in an aquarium if your up too that. I went and got my kids a 20g glofish tank and keep my 3 week supply of ghost shrimp in there. As well as the occasional molly.

The only issue I've had with the eel and lionfish together is that if the eel goes into a feeding frenzy (awesome to watch but you can try to avoid this by spot feeding) it does occasionally nip the lionfish spines

 

[lion king]

Lionfish only need to be fed a couple times a week to every other day max, you want to find out about lionfish, click my name and "find all threads". Please don't feed rosies, they have a tendency to bind up in the gut and cause bloat, which will end in death; as well as contains a high amount of thiaminese, which binds vitamin B1, ending in death.

The tank will be too small for the grouper and the humu. Humu's grow slowly and you may hear some keeping them in smaller tanks, but as they mature will be way too aggressive for 120g.

Adding a refugium or algae reactor to your filtration will be the best thing you can do.

I have 5 lionfish and 3 scorpionfish eating live food; ghost shrimp, guppies, and mollies. 3 little waspfish eating some live. I have a molly tank and a ghostie/guppy tank and spend about $30/week. Volitan lions easily eat dead food and will accept the variety they need for long term success; mostly the others will not. One lion will cost you about $3-5 a week in live food.

 

[DaddyFish]

@lion king was a great help to me with the Lionfish. Unfortunately that was after I had gotten myself into my second attempt at keeping a Lionfish. I'm not trying to be a naysayer, but do want to stress that IMO a Lionfish is a commonly misunderstood species, especially by those attempting to sell them. Accurate and effective knowledge about exactly which Lionfish you intend to keep is critical BEFORE you purchase one.

 

[Jedi1199]

This is a picture of what I remember having in the past...

lion king,​

Can you ID this guy? The page I found this image on is written in a language I don't recognize.

While looking for this picture, I saw a few pics of lions almost half the size of a full grown man. I had no idea these guys could get that big!! No wonder they are being labeled as "invasive" in some areas.

 

[tehmadreefer]

Only issue I can speak of is, most lionfish need to be fed live food (ghost shrimp etc..) Are you willing to feed live daily?

No they do not. They will eat shrimp, silverside, krill, fish strips etc

 

[tehmadreefer]

@lion king was a great help to me with the Lionfish. Unfortunately that was after I had gotten myself into my second attempt at keeping a Lionfish. I'm not trying to be a naysayer, but do want to stress that IMO a Lionfish is a commonly misunderstood species, especially by those attempting to sell them. Accurate and effective knowledge about exactly which Lionfish you intend to keep is critical BEFORE you purchase one.

Lol no it isn’t, they are no more difficult than any other fish.. where do you ppl get your info from lol certainly not experience.