Info on Lionfish

[Sky Devil]

My uncle wants to give me a juvenile Lionfish and so i'm clearing my stuff in another post.
Can anyone provide me the neccesary info on keeping lionfish?
What do i feed them?
Is their poison harmful to me?

[Mez]

Hi Sky Devil.
What sort of Lionfish is it?
These are the common ones:

Volitan Lionfish

The volitans reach around 16" and have a "wing" span of about 2ft, so they need to be kept in a minimum tank size of 4x2x2, ideally 5x2x2. Feed them frozen foods like krill, and also the occasional fidler crab and/or clownfish as a treat. These will consume any fish they can fit in their mouths, and any shrimp or lobster (or the lobster will eat the lion).

Radiata Lionfish

Get to about 10". Care is similar to that of the Volitan Lionfish. They will eat anything they can fit in their mouths, but are not really aggressive. Minimum tank size, 4x1x1.

Russelles Lionfish
Cannot find an image for this fish. They closely resemble the Volitans Lionfish.
Get to about 1ft long. Treat just like the Volitan Lionfish.

Antennata Lionfish

This is a very colourful and exotic looking Lionfish, reaching about 8 inches long. Provide them with rocky areas to hide among, but also open swimming space. Feed meaty foods. Minimum tank size 3x1x1.

Dwarf Fuzzy Lionfish

This is probably the most common of the Dwarf Lionfish. Get to about 5" long. Feed frozen krill and other meaty foods. Provide lots of rocky areas for them to sit. Will eat anything it can fit in its mouth. Not aggressive. Minimum tank size, 3x1x1. Note, this come in three colours, or a mix. Standard brown, red, and yellow.

Dwarf Zebra Lionfish

Get to about 6 inches long. Treat just like the Dwarf Fuzzy Lionfish. The stripes of the Dwarf Zebra Lionfish are usually darker than in the photo.

Fu-Man-Chu Lionfish

Get about 4 inches long. These lionfish are hard to ween onto frozen foods, so have a good live food stock in supply (prefferably Ghost/Glass Shrimps). Minimum tank size 2x1x1.

No, lionfish are not poisonuss. You can eat them. However, i'm sure you mean to ask if their venom is a harm to you? Yes, it is. If you are stung, you should run very hot water (the hottest you can stand) over the subjected area, and then get to hostpital.
Hope that helped...
James[]

[kelstorm]

What do i feed them?
try to feed them with live seafood like slivers or bait fish.. feeding freshwater feeder fishes will not survive long for them

Is their poison harmful to me?
only if u are allergic to the toxic.. otherwise, if u want to keep them, do make sure that u have a bottle of vinegar standby.. coz that is known to neutralise the toxin for a while. at least that is what i do when i got stung by them

[Mez]

Feeding really is down to what you can get.
Shrimps, fish and crabs (apart from hermits) will all be happily consumed.
Vinigar - never heard of that, however, another alternative is to pee on your injure...seriously. Aparantly it is the ammonia in the pee that helps. Still, running your hand under hot water is what most ppl advise.

[Sky Devil]

Its the second last one that i'm getting

[Mez]

Dwarf Zebra Lionfish?
What fish will it be housed with?
And what tank size?

[Sky Devil]

tank size is 15 gal.
No other fish.
But can i put soft corals with it?
What about anemones?

[Mez]

15g..i think that will be ok..it is a bit on the small side though.
You will need good filtation. What filtration do you plan on using? I reccomend lots of live rock and a cannister filter..
Soft corals, yes you can, but remember they need plenty of light (not as much as other corals, but still a fair bit), and lionfish dont really like brigt lights, and this can make them reclusive.
Anemones, depends what kind..
Again, they need very strong lighting (generally), and lionfish do not like light at all...i wouldnt put an anemone in the tank.
Please think very carefully before obtaining the lionfish about yer tank setup...

[kelstorm]

u might want to consider twice before having corals or anemones of that sort inside the lionfish tank.. this is what i dun recommend.. but have only LR and gravel sand inside.. like what Mez had mentioned, lionfish do not like much lights.. and loves to hide in caves, so, the LR that u have, try not to built caves but create resting spots for them, if u want to see your lionfishes that is.. this is from personal experience.. they remain hidden inside the cave until feeding time or night time...

[vache]

Probably you want to go to http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-11/ for more info in Lionfish. What i understand is that Lionfish dont really swim that much, so flow of the water or rather current shouldnt be high. Light must be dim or at least give them some hiding place. If they feel stress they will hide under the LR. So far feeding them FW feeder (shrimp and long gao fish aka river fish) no problem. Also find that thos long gao fish survive in salt water for a long time, probably more than a week. But still, you need to control the feeding, about 3 day once i feed mine. This is to control the nitrate level.

For stung by lionfish, heard that you can apply Deep Heat (available in pharmacy) directly. Myself got stung by them while i was catch them out of the tank, slight pain on it, but after awhile will be fine. Probably the stung aint serious or deep enough.

[eprouve]

Vache,

You link doesn't go anywhere.