FW live fish as food...

Chef Reef · #1 09/13/2007, 07:43 AM

when i bought my fuzzy dwarf lion, the LFS said he was eating guppies at the time. i asked them if they tried feeding anything else and they just stared at me lke "you can do that" anyways iv tried feeding him frozen silversides.. they were to big so i cut them up into little pieces about the size of a guppy.. he swims right up to them and follows it to the floor and just watches it.. so then i tried a feeding stick.. he got scared and ran away (clear stick) he dosent like mysis shrip eaith (put mysis in for other fish)

so i was wondering is it possibly to just gutload the guppys with some type of marine food and him still get the nutrients he needs? iv been doing that so far but im not sure if he's actually getting anything out of it or if im just wasting fish food..

the guppies have been being feed " hikari Marine -S-"

the analysis for the food is

Crude protein min. 48% typical. 52%
Crude fat. 8.0%
Oil 12%
Crude fiber max. 4.0% typical 1.3%
Moisture max. 10%
Crude ash max. 19% typical 15%
Phosphorus min. 1.0% typical 2.0%

Added vitamins and minerals:

Vit A - 19,900 IU/lb
Vit C - 72.6 mg/lb
Vit D3 - 3,990 IU/lb
Vit E - 454 mg/lb
copper sulfate - 8.17 mg/lb

some of the ingredients are fish meal, krill meal, silkworm pupa meal, dried seaweed meal, spirulina, DHA. (just a few main one..)

Thanks for any help and i didnt know if you needed the info on the food but maybe it will help or recomend a different food based on analysis

75Gallons · #2 09/13/2007, 07:57 AM

It may just be an issue of him being hooked on live food. Your going to have to ween him off of it. Not sure the nutrients are going to be in the gut of the guppies by the time he consumes them. Energy transfered between trophic levels decreases the further up the food chain you go.

Chef Reef · #3 09/13/2007, 07:58 AM

any ideas on how to ween him?

hamcam80 · #4 09/13/2007, 07:59 AM

My lionfish wouldn't eat when I first got him either (unless it was alive). I stopped feeding him for a few days, then put some mysis in the strongest part of the waterflow. That way it moved abd appeared alive. It took a couple of tries but he started eating it. I just had to make sure to get him over to where I wanted to feed him, because if it wasn't moving around he wouln't touch it.