Dr Marco's 125 experiment

[cthegame]

Great looking fish! Are these fish hard to keep?

[kimoy]

nice find though.

[Altohombre]

love the reddish color of him.

[Doc]

Originally Posted by kimoy

I just have to ask, Dit you just do a temp acclimation?

heavens no. I let them sit in the tank for 5 minutes and then add a 1/4 cup of water into the bag every 10 minutes til a cup is in, while it floats. takes me about 45 minutes.

-Doc

[Doc]

Originally Posted by cthegame

Great looking fish! Are these fish hard to keep?

Yes. they can be quite difficult. what makes them hard to keep alive is shipping and diet. They come from Sri Lanka and are often caught with poison in the water and so they just slowly die from the start of their journey.

the other part that makes them tough is their only wanting to eat ghost shrimp or other live fare. often they do not take frozen food and slowly starve. I have a trick that worked in the past and I hope it still works. I thaw out krill and drop it into the current of the powerhead nearest to when he perches. It takes some time to wait until he is close enough to be able to catch movement as often they sit near the bottom of the tank. Since they are predators, they want to hunt, not be fed. once they see the thawed krill shoot across the tank in the current of the powerhead, they leap at them and devour them. you have to be patient because once the krill stop moving in the current and settle onto the sand bed, the radiata loses interest in it. Takes some time, but I think it is worth it. I have never known anyone else who has been able to keep one alive. they are magnificent animals

-Doc

[fishbait]

that's one beautiful fish doc! congrats and good luck with him.

[yote]

Thats the same trick we use at the LFS Doc.
He looks healthy and should take to krill fairly easy.If he dont,try small pieces of frozen table shrimp.

[reeffreak]

It looks like the lionfish has a good start.It looks really healthy and congrats,good luck with it.

[jhnrb]

Very nice indeed. congrats.

[RyanG]

Hey Doc why dont you just live feed the Lionfish? My LFS live feeds all of their predators just plop in a crappy feeder goldfish and when he wants it...chomp!