Lionfish refusing to eat

Lionfish Lair · Jan 8, 2016

I think I'm maybe watching to many and it flags them with every thread I post in, rendering it kindda useless. Need to get better at that, because I wouldn't want to miss a conversation I was in the middle of having. Then I look like a schmuck. LOL!

mr fixit · Jan 8, 2016

I fed mine krill n it got wats called lockjaw n wouldnt eat it would try but wouldnt and eventually died I heard once u feed them krill they love it n wont eat anything else id stay away from krill

Lionfish Lair · Jan 8, 2016

Lockjaw doesn't actually cause that. It was something we were speculating on before, but it doesn't match up. There's research to show it may be lack of complete nutrition and wasting of the muscles that control the mouth/jaw or also caused by an incorrect ratio of fats. There's a few things being looked into now, but we really don't know what causes it. I have a lion who occasionally gets locked, but he's never seen krill in his life. Another get's krill with every meal and has never had it. The lockjaw theory was looked at over 10 years ago with some interest, but the study never panned out.

titi59 · Jan 10, 2016

I don't see her eat but she is allways in the thank and beautiful colors so i think sometimes she catch a krill or mysis mayby

Lionfish Lair · Jan 10, 2016

I was just thinking about you this morning. Have they come out yet? Did you try the guppies? This species isn't a great one for guppies, as they are more naturally shrimp eaters.

FeliciaLynn · Jan 20, 2016

I don't know if you've succeeded in getting her to eat yet, but I thought I'd chime in. Sounds like you've gotten great advice so far.

The fish being shy at first is definitely to be expected, but it should be much more outgoing once it gets settled in. I have a dwarf zebra lionfish, and he has the most personality of any fish in my tank. He was however, the most stubborn of my lionfish to get onto frozen food. Like everyone said, the best food to start with is always live ghost shrimp. A healthy lionfish should go for these right away. You should be able to find them at a local aquarium store or even Petsmart/Petco since they're sold as feeders. The most common ones are the freshwater kind and you can keep them in a little freshwater holding tank. I would recommend feeding the shrimp some high quality marine flake food just before feeding them to the lionfish to increase their nutritional value. If you can't find any locally, you can order them online. There's a website I was ordering saltwater ghost shrimp from because then I could keep them a bunch in my sump to have a supply of food. Here's where I was ordering from:
http://floridapets.com/epages/047c0...-dd4b-4d34-97de-30717de1adee/Products/ghost25

To start training my zebra onto frozen food, I would grab the live ghost shrimp by the tail with a pair of long feeding tongs and hold it in front of the lionfish. Once my lionfish was used to taking the live shrimp from the tongs, I started offering frozen food that way as well. It took several months of patience, but I was able to get my zebra eating frozen PE Mysis. These seemed to work best because they are a bit bigger and look a lot like the ghost shrimp. I'd hold the frozen shrimp by the tail and wiggle it like the live ghost shrimp. Now that my zebra is eating frozen, he's not picky and all and will attack the feeding tongs for food. He's always out begging for food when he sees me. I feed a mix of PE mysis, scallop chunks, salmon chunks, and squid chunks for variety. Good luck!

FeliciaLynn · Jan 20, 2016

Oh, and I forgot to mention, lionfish can go quite a while without eating, so don't give up hope yet. Also, once she's eating the live ghost shrimp and you're ready to transition to frozen, starving the lionfish for a while will help. I had to starve mine for about a week to get him to show interest in the frozen mysis.