Who has kept one? What year did you keep one? Do you know what waters it specifically came from? Did it hang at the LFS for awhile? What size was it?


Did you try any prophylactics (demorming/dipping/antibiotics/hypo)?


How long did it live once you brought it home? What did they die of (no obvious reason, bacterial, environmental etc etc)? Did you intervene with any treatments?


What were the particulars of their environment? Tankmates? Chiller? What temp did you keep them at? General setup?


Were you able to convert them to frozen. If yes, what did you feed them. If no, what did you feed them? Did you supplement with enrichments? Add any vitamins to the water? Beta Glucan?


Any experiences you could share would be great.

Curious as well.. I saw one at the LFS yesterday and was told they only get them in early spring. I probably watched him in the tank for a half hour. Definitely beautiful with the rear of his fins colored fluorescent blue.. he basically glided/shuffled across the bottom of the tank, so definitely a bottom dweller. I went home and researched and couldn't find much except for the fact that they are actually a cold water species and that most die within six months if kept in a warm water tank

Yup, not a fish to just go out an buy.

The forums have a mostly archived info on them and mostly do not contain information of real value mainly because most threads are not followed up.

Had mine 4 weeks. They quite often go down with bacterial infections so I'm on day #4 of prophylactic broad spectrum antibiotics. Already dewormed.

Would like to see what others have tried, no sense in reinventing the wheel :-)

What temperature is the tank you're keeping him in? I found some info that some specimens are collected from warmer waters and can do well at tropical temps, but there really is no way to know.

Ours were collected from Secret Bay in the Phillipines, so they may indeed tolerate warmer temps than their temperate friends. They do stay on the sand on the bottom on the bay where the water is considerable colder than the surface. We started off at 70 but we are at 66 - 67.

If (and more than likely when) we lose ours we are going to send it in for a necropsy to see if there is anything interesting we can find out.

So sad, my LFS was selling these just like any other "insert random marine fish here". It was in the tank with a few other dwarf lionfish. Asked him if it had any special care requirements and he just said "nah, it's just like a dwarf fuzzy" and started to do the pressure sale of "he'll be gone in no time, we only get them once a year". He was truly beautiful. Immediately got home and googled it to find out that they are basically on death row from the minute you put it in your reef tank due to their lower temp needs.

I updated the questions a little... :-)

pics? /waits eagerly

I will if it will increase my chances of finding a current/previous owner of one :-) Pics aren't that good actually because of the bubbles in the tank. We're trying to get a lot of splash going to increase the O2. Just a temporary solution until we get a little bit more time and a new O2 test kit. Mine is kind of old.

If anyone even knows where I could go to hunt down someone they know had one..........

From tonight.

I just now stumbled upon this and am excited to know others have kept them. I got my first one 3 years ago in March. My LFS owner said they could only get them during a two week period in March for some reason. My first one I kept for about 2 weeks before it died (I think an infection). He was never that active. The next year, around the second week in March yet again, I tried my hand at another one. This one proved quite different. He was very energetic, eager to eat, a thrill to watch, and a great addition to the tank overall. I fed it krill every couple of days and he ate it with gusto. This time I made sure the LFS had him eting frozen foods in front of my eyes before I took the blue fin home. He lived hapily, from what I could tell, in my 30g tank at a constant 78 degrees for 3 months. One day I decided to bump up the flow in the tank. The blue fin never seemed to enjoy the extra flow but I thought "It will adjust to it." The next morning I found my precious blue fin on the carpet dried up. Overall he seemed pretty resilient and a good addition to the tank until I added an excess of flow to the tank. I never would have thought the blue fin would take such dramatic measures to the increased flow. That is about all I can contribute on the subject. I hope this helped and best of luck with the blue fins. They truly are beautiful lionfish!

Whoa! Awesome fish!