What is the best fish to feed a lion and tang?

[cirionrc]

I went to multiple fish stores and they all say different things. Lately I have been feeding him minnows and heard they were not nutritious enough. Same brine shrimp. Then I was told to feed it shrimp from the grocery store. Just bobb a little piece around and he will eat it. Well, the lion has absolutely no interest in eating albertson's shrimp. What about guppies? Silversides? The only stores close by are petco, petsmart. Oh and just got a yellow tang. Once again, was told to put romaine lettuce in the tank, yet the tang has no interest. Do tangs eat flakes, lettuce or what. I have flakes, freeze dries brine shrimp, frozen brine shrimp, bloodworms, and freeze dries krill.

[reef93]

I have no experience with lion fish. but for yellow tang feed it with nori(dry seaweed) which you can find it any asian market. Just make sure nori is not seasoned. How long you have those fish? It usually takes couple days to a week before the settle down. HTH

[jjharrisx4]

do a web search on feeding lions alternative foods. They can be trained to eat frozen foods, or freezdried foods like krill. You don't want to feed a saltwater fish a freshwater whole prey item. Unfortunatley there are all sorts of nutritional problems that will happen, probably the most common is a fatty liver. Lionfish are very intelligent, and may need to be coaxed into trying the new food by some selective feeding for a few days...in other words, don't feed the lion for a few days and when he's hungry he'll be more inclined to sample. Many people use a skewer to move the shrimp in front of the lion and make it seem more appealing.

 

For the Tang, Reef93 is right on. My yellow tang loves nori...also my other fish (clown, neon goby) love it.

[The Unit]

how onld in the lion and what kind?....it will take weeks to trasin him to eat frozen food... i got my volitan to the piont were he was eating frozen chunks of small shrimp out of my hand....tanks will need a great diet to be healthy...go to your LFS and buy "seaweed selects"it is about $3 they should love it..also get some frozen brine and put that in their ... that shouls be a nice diet for the tank....

[anthony812]

as of the yellow tang..DO NOT FEED iT lettuce!!! they are the worst thing to feed them..absolutly no nutrients what so ever! use seaweed, Tang's Heaven (macroalage), or simply Flake food is better than lettuce!

 

And your lion, he will eat practically anything..throw in a clenaer or peppermint shrimp..they will like the feasts..or small damsels works well also..hahaha...you can train your lion to eat frozen food formula one has a balanced nutrients..

 

good luck

[vanillabox]

The main thing is to feed the animal what you would find in the ocean.

 

For vegies, I agree with the nori and macro algae.

 

For meats, I would use fresh seafood from the grocery store or mollies that have been breed in a saltwater tank. That way they have all of the minerals that are good for the fish in question and are rather inexpensive if you have a few females and a male making babies. I don't even feed mine that are living in my LS/Macro farm tank.

[Glenn]

I don't know about the lion fish, but I do have a tang (7 months). I also had trouble getting it to eat. What I did was to take a veggie clip a place it on the glass in front of it's favorite hole and left until it ate it. I think that it took about 1 day and a half before he ate it. Hope this helps.

[gobies]

> And your lion, he will eat practically anything..throw in a clenaer or peppermint shrimp..they will like the feasts..

 

Ouch. Expensive. Try ghost/glass/grass shrimp, they're much cheaper. You can acclimate them to saltwater, so they don't die immediately when they hit the lion's tank.

 

Come to think of it, you're in SD -- get yourself down to Chinatown or your local fishmongers and see if you can buy ocean shrimp that are still live.

 

If nothing else works, get yourself some mollies. Acclimate them to saltwater. Then raise the molly fry to a feeder size (keeping them in saltwater their whole lives). At least this way your feeder fish are guaranteed disease-free, well-nourished, and their scales are substantially smaller than those of goldfish.

[Crakeur]

Originally posted by jjharrisx4

 You don't want to feed a saltwater fish a freshwater whole prey item.  

 

I had a snowflake moray that grew from several inches to close to three feet long (probably bigger but I stopped visiting it after I gave it away) on goldfish. I used to feed my predator tank goldfish and my lion loved them, as did my triggers and grouper. Alas, I ditched the tank after a while (wife wouldn't have it when we moved in together) so I gave everything to a friend. He used to feed 100 goldfish to his larger predator tank once a month or so. He owns his own aquarium building and maintenance company (fairly successful) so I would say the goldfish ain't too bad.

 

You must get them out if they go uneaten but that is a given.

 

Also, you can toss feeder shrimp in too.

 

As for the tang, it takes time but they will eventually get the hint. Maybe try some dried seaweed attached to a rock, or perhaps some macro-algae that is real cheap. That's how I got the office tangs to take to the dried stuff.