The legend of Fu-Manchu

Well, I've gone and done it. I bought my first venomous fish today. A lovely, juvenile fu-manchu, or two-spot lion fish. Much to my amazement, the little guy actually accepted a couple of live ghost shrimp a mere 10 minutes after being introduced to my quarantine tank. 8)

As this little guy prefers live food, has anybody raised mysis or ghost shrimp before? Will ghost shrimp survive if introduced into the main tank (when not being eaten of course). Should I keep a stock of feeder guppies?

I got some advice from the LFS, but I often respect the opinions of this group a bit above that of the average 'fish peddler'.

 

My Fuzzy dwarf used to eat silversides which are small frozen fish you can normally pick up at the LFS. If you decide to do this make sure that you get the whole silversides that still have the eyeballs and tail. You will need to stick the silverside on the end up something and wiggle it in the lions face. He should pick it off. If you don't want to do this you will either have to keep a supply of guppies or ghost shrimp. Neither one of these are good for him. Check out http://www.livebrineshrimp.com for ghost shrimp if they still sell them. Hope this helps. You will love the lion. Once they acclimate they're like puppy dogs.

 

The silversides sound like a winner to me! My LFS sells ghost shrimp, so they are easy to come by. Once I get my hands on some feeding tongs or something similar I'll give the silversides a try. For some strange reason, I just don't want this one to eat from my hand [smiley=smart.gif]

Thanks!! [smiley=beer.gif]

 

Sounds good. Do you have any pics of the Fu? I can't remember what they look like. I love lionfish!

 

Great to hear of you new purchase. I got a Dwarf zebra about 2 weeks ago. These little guys are awesome. I am having trouble feeding him though. He likes ghost shrimp but they don't have a whole lot of nutritional value.

If you are going to use ghost shrimp you should gut-load them prior to feeding. This is done by feeding you shrimp a sinking algae wafer about 1-2 hours before hand. You could also use a carnivorous sinking pellet but I prefer to get a little veggie in their diet.

I will have to buy some silver slides tomorrow. I have also gotten him to eat one piece of krill which he seems to like.

Let me know what works for you.

 

Well, I was going to get some silversides, but I think the little guy is a bit small to manage to eat one. I picked up some frozen krill and will give it a try tomorrow. Worse case, I'll give the gut-loaded ghost shrimp a try (thx somethingfishy) , he seems to like those. I hope to get him on frozen food as keeping ghost shrimp and feeder guppies, beside the fact that they just aren't very nutritious just seems like a pain! It's bad enough that I have the 55gal tank, 35 gal sump, 5 gal top off, and a 1/4 gal brine shrimp tank all in one spot!

I don't have a pic yet, but found this on images.google.com:



Just looking at the little fella makes me happy! [smiley=2thumbsup.gif] He has this really cool habit of moving the dorsal spines side to side, one by one, in a jerky/mechanical fashion when he catches me looking. Probably a threatening move, but I'll call it personality for now.

 

I noticed this morning that the fu's color was fading and it appeared to have blisters along it's dorsal spines. I first freaked out a bit, then took a water sample to the LFS. They said the water seems ok, except for the calcium level. Half an hour later, I returned home to do a water change and decide weather or not to move the fish to a separate tank and had to pry fu's corpse from my serpent star's arms. [smiley=bawling.gif]

I bagged him up and headed to the LFS. They said whatever killed it looked to be internal. They said that they usually don't do this, but took my name and phone number so they could call me first thing Thursday when a replacement comes in. They figure it would be a bit less stressful for me to pick the guy up before they acclimate it to their tanks. It doesn't make me feel any better about the fish dying, but at least the money isn't a total loss. [smiley=disappointed.gif]

 

That really sucks I'm sorry to hear about the loss and I hope you have better luck with the replacement.

Karma for you in the meantime

 

While you are waiting GT, this is a must read! Enjoy!

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-11/fm/feature/index.htm

 

Thanks amcarrig! A little karma never hurt anybody, unless it was bad of course!

Thanks for the link Craig. I know of the potential difficulties in getting a fu manchu to eat, but thought I was off to a good start when it readily accepted ghost shrimp on the first day. Granted, I was trying to switch to frozen food a little quickly, I did release some ghost shrimp into the tank and they are still alive. Perhaps I might see if I can get a fuzzy dwarf instead, but I really have my heart set on a fu! I have plenty of ledges/caves for it to hide, and have already assembled a baster/tube contraption to target feed the fella. Perhaps it is the poor shipability that killed it, I wish I knew. Nothing like having the guilt of the death of such a beautiful creature hanging over my head. :'(