Lionfish Lair's Lions

[Lionfish Lair]

Over the years we have owned all the common lions, plus a couple of the "not so common".

My babies......

Dendrochirus barberi

Dendrochirus biocellatus

Dendrochirus brachypterus

Dendrochirus zebra

Pterois antennata

Pterois mombasae

Pterois radiata

Pterois volitans

Parapterois heterura

Pterois sphex

 

[Feet4Fish]

IMO the most beautiful family of fish throughout the entire genus!

 

[rayn]

Still that one elusive one to get!

Always a awesome collection you have/had

 

[Lionfish Lair]

I'm going to live vicariously through you when you find it Doug. I'm not having the most wonderful restocking experience and am starting to wonder why I'm doing it. I'm at 1% enjoyment level and a 99% frustration level.

 

[ReefQueen]

Lovely! I've always wanted a lion, maybe someday. I'll just enjoy your pics in the meantime

 

[rayn]

I'm going to live vicariously through you when you find it Doug. I'm not having the most wonderful restocking experience and am starting to wonder why I'm doing it. I'm at 1% enjoyment level and a 99% frustration level.

Hang in there! You'll pull through and have a full house again with beautiful healthy fish.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

I think the Sphex would be quite content to be alone in there forever.

Dude, the Cocokatoo is also bit of a butt. I don't think I especially care for this one. We'll have to wait and see.

 

[Chibils]

Beautiful lions!

 

[revhtree]

Yes beautiful lions!

 

[rayn]

I think the Sphex would be quite content to be alone in there forever.

Dude, the Cocokatoo is also bit of a butt. I don't think I especially care for this one. We'll have to wait and see.

What's up with the cockatoo? They are always a bit grumpy. Not wanting to eat or wean?

 

[Lionfish Lair]

My Cockatoos have always been so lovely. Eager, but not pushy, shall we say. He's going to make feeding everyone else in the tank just a little bit harder.

I expect to wake up one night with him sitting on my head saying "Look, do you think you can go to the kitchen to get me a snack..... and by "do you think", I mean NOW!". I don't even want to think about cleaning the tank, he's going to make it impossible.

The Fu will not be alive by tomorrow.

We're now entering week 4 of QT. I'm not sure how long I'm going to wait.

 

[rayn]

So you got a bully this time? What happened to the Fu?

 

[Lionfish Lair]

HORRIBLE lesion on the peduncle. The Cockatoo came with a lesion and the Fu came acting weird. I could tell something was up, but I didn't know what it was going to present itself as. The Cockatoo is 95% healed, the Fu is 95% worse and I fear the infection is systemic.

 

[rayn]

That sucks. I tried that one radiata I sent you a pic of, but it didn't make it either. Are lions still coming in all messed up? Some have to be good, cause others are getting nice ones

 

[scardall]

Never seen a green variety (Dendrochirus barberi). These fish may look a little shy, but they are not. I was venomized and it was very painful for almost 12hrs. Still a cool fish. Next time I'll have a bigger tank that has more open space.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

The Fu is dead. I knew I should have emailed them today that it was pending to ask permission to do a necropsy.

 

[Omar Torres]

@Lionfish Lair !!! Renee, you make these guys look so cuddly!!! Amazing looking fish!! If I get this promotion and they double my salary..... Guess who is upgrading??? Me!! Going to get a lion!

 

[FeliciaLynn]

I'm going to live vicariously through you when you find it Doug. I'm not having the most wonderful restocking experience and am starting to wonder why I'm doing it. I'm at 1% enjoyment level and a 99% frustration level.

Sorry to hear this! I've definitely been there before with this hobby! Actually, me deciding to get lionfish was my crazy decision to try to get me back to being excited about this hobby instead of frustrated and burned out. It worked! I hope you can have some good luck and get re-excited as well.

Is there any way you could find some lionfish or other scorps locally? You're in LA right, so you should have a ton of stores to choose from and that's where a lot of the wholesalers are, so I'd think you guys would have a great fish selection. I know Divers Den is awesome, but I just always prefer to get my fish locally. That way you can go see them in person first and make sure they appear healthy, are behaving normally, and will readily take food.

Also, I don't know what species you're planning to have in this tank, but maybe start with something easy and hardy like a dwarf fuzzy or a volitans to help get back to not being frustrated. The fu manchus I've been seeing locally lately seem to be coming in very unhealthy. Maybe wait on one of those until you can find one locally that seems healthy. Mine had been at a local store for quite a while before I got him and had had time to get settled in and I could tell he was healthy and he was already taken frozen food. I definitely prefer to buy fish that way!

 

[Lionfish Lair]

I forgot I was frustrated as I bent over the microscope all evening..... I hate fish dying, but I enjoyed the necropsy.

I hate saying this, but I prefer buying my fish from DD over the LFS that aren't so "L" anymore. You can't beat the warranty DD gives you. So far they've given me 4 weeks on these fish. If the Cockatoo isn't symptom free next Monday, they'll extend it again. I don't buy from LiveAquaria, because I want to see what the fish look like. I never ask for them to be fed at the LFS. So, it's a Catch 22, but DD works better for what I'm looking for.

I'm restocking like my 100g which are smaller lions, scorps, waspfish and perhaps a stingfish. The thing is, these can be so rare, you have to buy them when you see them and possibly grow them out if they don't fit in with the current stock size. I'm only going with a single fuzzy as my mated pair turned aggressive when they started producing eggs. So, I suspect I'll pass up a couple of "less pretty" ones to get that special specimen.

 

[Lionfish Lair]