Fuzzy Dwarf Lion wont eat and shedding

[ashleigh234]

I have a 3inch fuzzy dwarf lion who has been in the tank for several months, I have had the tank myself for 3-4 weeks. He wont eat and is now shedding - day 3

In an attempt at getting him off live food, I have started to reduce his feeding so as he doesnt expect a live fish every morning like he is used to, so about a week or so ago I started to give him one every second day.
For the last 3 days I have tried to give him a fish and on every occasion (have tried about 8 times in these 3 days) he wont eat the fish. THe fish can be right under his nose (wiggling its tail across his face even!) and swim right by him for ages and he just isnt interested.
I noticed last night that he was shedding, hadnt noticed any of this in previous days but i assume this would be the reason he isnt eating?
After how many days should i begin to get worried? I understand that they do shed, whether it be water quality etc or if he is growing? and that they can also go without eating for a while.
Previous person who was using the tank was using natural salt water for his water changes and had no problems, I have been using artificial, and on Friday I put in 20-30 litres of Natural Salt water myself, the water looked clean and couldnt see anything floating in it and also got it from the incoming tide. Plenty of people in Australia do this, so unless I got unlucky and there was somethign in the water?
his behaviour has also not changed at all, still rests for a majority of the day just perching on rocks and every 30-60mins he will swim around for a while, then rest again, then when the lights go out he swims for ages, well I see him doing this until i go to bed anyway.
Parameters:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20 (cant seem to get this down but am in the process of getting a new skimmer to help get stuff out of the water that our current skimmer just doesnt seem to be doing, hopefully this along with water changes will help)
PH: 8.2-8.4 (hard to tell which colour, looks like it could be in between the two.
SG: 1.019 - I know this is a bit low but I am slowly increasing it from 1.018, my swing arm reader had a little salt in it so was reading slightly higher than it should! but now it is clean and is reading the same as the lfs which is good

 

[small triggers]

it sounds fine, they can take up to a week to finish shedding and can go without eating for almost 2 weeks
My biggest question is how are you trying to feed the frozen fish? are you using something that is barely visible or are you sticking your hand in the water shaking it around?
I know it is very hard to get a dwarf lion off live foods, i killed my in trying... but decreasing the live feedings until he gets hungry enough to take the thawed out frozen food is a great idea,,, depending on size you can go more than 2 days between feedings also...

 

[ashleigh234]

Can they go a couple of weeks without eating even at his size? I thought that was more for the bigger ones?
I havent yet started feeding frozen, at the stage he stopped eating, I had only just started (3-4 days before hand) reducing the feeding to every second day instead of daily
After a week or two of doing that i had planned on reducing it to once every 3 days and then try from there, that way on the 3rd day he will be getting a bit hungry and will be more likely to take it.
Fingers crossed he is just shedding because he is growing or something and that there is nothing wrong ... will keep an eye on him. He did start to turn a reddish colour a week or so ago so Im wondering if he is just growing and changing colour at the same time, and then now shedding.

 

[ashleigh234]

Anyone else have ideas? Last thing I want is to come home from work one day and find he has died
Cranberry?

 

[skate020]

lionfish are predators, and most predator fish can go about 2 weeks without food. im not 100% sure on the lion but i know the majority of predator fish can. your'll certainly be alright for a week or so

 

[jstdv8]

The way I did it was I have a pair of tongs from the lizard side of the pet store that are about 8" long and not too large at the bottom so they dont look menacing. started out by feeding him live fish while holding the fish in the tongs. once he was hungry enough (took 5 days) he ate it out of the tongs, so I gave him another same way. next time I put in a dead fish in the tongs that was live right before I put him in tank, he ate it. 3 days later I put in frozen silversides and hes been eating frozen ever since. I also use dried krill and live ghost shrimp for snacks sometimes between feeding every 3 days

 

[ashleigh234]

Jstdv8, I am not too interested at this stage in getting him on the frozen food, I had started in my tracks to do this, but then he jsut stopped eating all together, which is my main concern at this stage, I would much rather he eat a live fish than nothing at all.
It has now been a week since he has had any food, I have tried every day twice to get him to eat, but no matter what he just doesnt want to touch the food.
He is still swimming around the tank actively at night as he has always done and rests on the rocks and bottom of the tank during the day which he has always done (well, since we have had him anyway which must be a month or so now)
It doesnt look like he is shedding anymore, although it may have just reduced, Im not sure.
Has anyone experienced their lion not eating at the same time as shedding? How long did this go on for?
All other fish (and corals) in the tank are happy as larry and have no problems that i can see, they are all swimming around as normal, and all corals/mushrooms are opening right up during the day.

 

[cranberry]

Whoa.... I double missed you. I'm so sorry about that. If I don't answer in 24 hours, I missed the post. My box is always full and sometimes I don't notice when I have a pending message.
Tell me about this water change with NSF. How soon after did he go off his food or did he go off it before the water change?
They all shed as a part of their routine. They shed more often when they have parasites. Be sure to tell us when he does it again.
All my scorps have ditched food at one time or another while shedding, but they pick it up again immediately after.
So you guys don't have cheap feeder guppies there? I can get them for 12 for a buck here and they are small. The Thiaminase I mentioned in the PM is an enzyme that is found in the flesh of many FW fish and when eaten, it removes thiamine from the SW fish so that they become deficient (to keep it simple). One of the signs of this is anorexia. Do you guys have feeder shrimp there? Ghost shrimp? Grass Shrimp? Popcorn shrimp?
I wouldn't worry trying to convert to frozen at this point. We need to focus getting him back on live.

 

[ashleigh234]

No probs Cranberry ... knew you would come to the rescue sooner or later
Whoops, sorry forgot to tell you in PM about the water change lol
We changed 5 gallons of water on Friday last week, which was about the same time he stopped eating. I think it may have been Saturday I first tried and he refused (had given him one on Thursday previous to that, i think)
Although as mentioned in PM, he was yawning and shedding something around his mouth a week (or it may have been closer to two) before this started, so somehow I dont think they are directly related, although possibility?
If he has a parasite, will it go away on its own? Hope thats not the problem either way.
And will it affect anything else in the tank? Nothing else seems to be affected by anything at this stage

 

[cranberry]

If it were me, I would would be looking at that water change as the culprit. It doesn't have to be a parasite but can be any type of pollutant.

 

[ashleigh234]

Other than water changes to get rid of the water i put in, what else may help? Do you think he will come right?
As he was showing signs of shedding well before we put that water in, would it still have something to do with it? Why would it only affect him is my question?? If there was something in the water wouldnt more of the fish be affected?

 

[cranberry]

I would change the water first and see what that does. Do you guys get a lot of fertilizer run off over there? Maybe why your nitrates are up? Not that I would worry about a 20 is nothing else in the tank is.
Shedding is normal, so it may just be a coincidence he did it right now.

 

[ashleigh234]

No wouldnt be any fertilizer run off, i am yet to test the tap water we use normally for nitrates, will do that tonight.
This is the first time i put any NSW in the tank, normally I use artificial salt and tap water, our lfs is very experienced and has said that using the tap water around here is ok, so no rodi unit for me at this stage lol.
The owner who previously owned the tank used NSW all the time, he collected from a different place from me, about 30mins down the coast further. I will see if a water change helps, it will have to be a big one i would think to reduce that 5 gallons thats in there
In general though, do they stop eating while they are shedding?

 

[cranberry]

I've had it happen. But only for one feeding. And never a refusal of live. They never refused live unless there was a reason.
Are you treating your tapwater with conditioner?

 

[ashleigh234]

Thanks for your help Cranberry, will do a water change and see if he will eat after that, I will do a 10-15g change to start with.
If it is the problem, and he starts eating after this, what do you think would have been in the water? What sort of parasites etc can be picked up in NSW? Anything to be overly concerned about, like long term effects? And if it is something else in the water, why is it only affecting him? This bit has me stumped???
We also have a Red Coris Wrasse, Coral Beauty, Foxface, Occelaris Clown (excuse spelling) 2 x Damsels, and a Rock Boring Urchin, a Tigertail Cucumber and a couple of snails. And a few corals/mushrooms as well.
How could something in the water only affect the lion and none of the other fish? They are all eating like crazy lol, very hungry fish.
As he is only 3inches, how much longer before I should start to get really concerned about his not eating?

 

[cranberry]

Different fish are sensitive to different things.
You've had him 3-4 weeks? Bought from the LFS?
How worried I would be depends on their age and size. A nice happy fat lion I would be less inclined to worry about so fast.
Id be concerned if this water change doesn't do anything. Not because they are in danger of starving at this point, but because I would be thinking about the causative factor. Lions love food. When they don't.... it's a concern. A nice fatty could go a month without food (depending on age), but again I would be very worried before that point because something would definitely be up.
I'm a very visual person.... I sometimes have trouble knowing what I would do from words.

 

[ashleigh234]

We have had the tank for that long, but we brought it off a guy (whole set up) who had it running for a year, I think the lion has been in there for approx 6-8mths from memory.
Im not sure how to tell the difference between a fat and skinny lion, I have one a pic of him thats my avatar, this was before we got him, but its the only one I have, only have a cell phone camera and it just doesnt do a very good job.
Being 3inches, how old do you think he could be? How old are they fully grown normally? As he has had 1 fish a day since the previous owner got him (i started to reduce it to 1 every second day a week before he stopped eating) he should be a fatty lol?? but not sure. he doesnt look skinny or anything i dont think, but will have a good look at him tonight. (only 12pm here)
I have feed him a couple of ghost shrimp in the past and he ate those, so i might try him on those as well, could he just not like the feeder fish anymore?

 

[cranberry]

If he's been eating those fish all this time it could also be the cause. I don't know the Thiaminase level of them. Definitely go with ghost shrimp. Does any of the prepared flake food down there have Beta Glucan in it? What pellet/flake do you have access to?
Fish growth is based on age and then some other variable such as nutrition and environment. I'm really bad with approximating size, but they can get about 7". But I've seen smaller ones that were clearly mature adults based on their girth. The old boys have this look. I have to try to get some pictures of them. There's no mistaking the look.
He was being fed too much. He could also be constipated. Let's hope he doesn't have a blockage which can also happen when they are fed large chucks of food. I feed multiple small pieces to reduce this risk. If the food hangs in there too long, it can rot.

 

[ashleigh234]

How often would it be recommended to feed him (once he starts eating of course, if he does

) Every 2-3 days?
I will try doing a water change, and also try a shrimp, I will try the shrimp first as if he takes it then I know he isnt after the fish anymore.
If he has a blockage, can they clear this on their own?
I hope hes not a gonner!!
I wouldnt know if any of the flake food has that stuff in it
The pellets i am currently feeding the other fish (and also feeding the feeder fish) are detailed below (the fish also get other food).
Here is the details of the pellets:
Spectrum Marine Formula 150gm
The high quality easily digestable krill & fish meal protein make up this well balanced diet for all marine fish. Enhances the full spectrum of your fish with 4 natural color enhancing ingredients.
MAIN INGREDIENTS: Krill Meal, Fish Meal, Wheat Flour, Amino Acids, Algae Meal, Soybean Meal, Fish Oil, Beta Carotene, Spirulina, Vitamin A Acetate, D-Activated Animal- Sterol (D3), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Niacin, Folic Acid, Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Thiamine, Biotin.
GUARANTEED ANALYSIS: Protein 34% Min., Fat 5% Min., Fiber 5% Max., Ash 9% Max., Moisture 8% Max.

 

[cranberry]

Purrrrrfect. Feed that stuff to some shrimp and try to get him to eat that.
I feed Mon, Wed and Fri. I always check their belly before hand to make sure they are empty. If there looks to be food in there, I don't feed them that day.
So, I would change some water and get those shrimp, that would be my plan. Keep watching for abnormal behaviour, let me know anything you think is strange or out of place.