I added a lionfish to my reef....Also another cool fish, need a scientific name!

azonic

azonic

Active Member
Good evening everyone. Was down to the LFS today checking out yesterday's shipment of SW....and a guy brings in a dwarf lion that he wants credit for because he apparently ate one of his green chromis....he didn't see it happen but he is assuming it because there was a chunk out of the chromis tale when he got home from a 3 day vacation and the grabs were munching on what little was left....best we(me and LFS owner) could figure is that he died and got eaten by the inverts. ANYWAY, what's funny about it is, about 2 months ago two dwarf lions came into the store and they were both sold within hours of arriving...i was going to get one but someone got there first....the one the guy brought in today was the one i wanted to get! He has been eating pellets/krill/mysis/FW feeders(treats) so I grabbed him up :)
two pics included. Also, is there more then one type of dwarf lion? I think this one is a dwarf/zebra lion? anyone verify this?


Also while I was there, He had fish labeled Porcupine Fish. NOT Porcupine Puffer....they are different completely....I've been trying to get a positive id/scientific name but I have had no luck. He is white with black spots, big blue eyes, very small spikes, and his two eyes are independant from one another....he looks like he is doped up all the time. pic included. Please ignore the two huge terds next to him, my yellow tang had a big lunch.
 
azonic

azonic

Active Member
Thanks for the info on the lion, I hope he stays around the size he is at now, around 3-4 inches. I'll get a better shot of the other fish tomorrow, it was hard to focus when the lights are out and he was half buried in the sand.
 
azonic

azonic

Active Member
Ok, I've got 10+ shots of the second fish now for someone to hopefully use to ID him. Again, I bought him labelled as a "Porcupine Fish". Though you cannot see them in the pics, there are very very small prickly spines on his body...i think they lay flat against him until he gets pissed off. Some of the pics are with flash, some without, one from above looking down, some using the digital zoom to get a little closer to him.





 
fmarini

fmarini

Member
the lion is D. zebra aka the dwaf lion.
As mentioned there are three flavors of dwarf lions and the Fu man chu is bright orange, the other dwarf is a dwarf fuzzy which can have sinilar coloration but has not striping and a fuzzy body texture.
When you say you add these fish to your reeftank? does thast mean these fish are in a tank w/ a reef-type corals setup? i ask becuz i expect that puffer to chomp live rock and the lion will eat any small inverts or fish you may have. Also puffers tend to be good fin nippers and that lions has some beautiful fins
 
drew_tt

drew_tt

Member
fahaka puffer?...
and rethink adding both of these to your reef. they severly limit what your ""reef"" can contain.
 
azonic

azonic

Active Member
It's not a fahaka. Those are generally fresh water....not even brackish from what I've read. I'm not worried about them limiting me. They were the last two fish going into my tank. There is nothing on my tank that the lion will be able to eat. Only two possibilities are the mandarin or sixline. The sixline is too fast for him and the mandarin hangs out on top of his powerhead all day long....only comes down at night for a brief moment to eat some pods. Other then that there is a HUGE yellow tang, a really long/thick LMB, pair of maroon clowns, a nice sized clarki clown...i think thats all. I've given them alot of thought. The puffer is well fed, I doubt he will bother anybody. As for the "puffer".....he hasn't so much as gone near an invert or the liverock. so I think my "reef" will be just fine... I just need a positive ID on that puffer. He looks similar to the fahaka except his coloring is completely different, and from what I can tell, the fahaka does NOT have the little spikes like he does.
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
I would rethink them as well. Not so much the lion as the puffer. Though I don't know what it is, it has the marks of a puffer that will reach some size (meaning, doesn't seem to be a toby). I wouldn't buy any fish that I didn't know exactly what size it reaches. Puffers can be HUGE. But that is me...
They are new additions to the tank, so I would not expect them to go running around eating everything yet. But I suspect that puffer may eventually try, at least some snails and shrimp.
But the other reason not to have such animals in a reef is because when they are "well fed" they are also putting out a lot of waste. This is not the best situation for corals.
As for fish being too "fast" for a lion, remember, lionfish are not chasers, they are ambush predators. They wait until something comes close, and suck them in with a very powerful mouth. So, the common warning about lions- that they can eat anything that will fit in their mouth- stands for the dwarf. The sixline may be fast, but all he has to do is swim too close to the lion, which is definitely possible.
 
jonthefb

jonthefb

Active Member
and remember even though hes a dwarf, hell still get to be about 6 inches long
as for the puffer. im really not too sure. he is an interesting one at thtat though. any chance you can ask the lfs owner what he came in as? workign at a lfs, all the fish we get in from our wholesalers, usually have the scientific name on it as well. maybe you can ask him to look at the inventory list from the shipment that the puffer came in on!
good luck, and let us know what you find!
jon
 
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