Lionfish Question

thoroughbred

thoroughbred

Member
So Ive had my dwarf zebra for about a month and he seems to be doing ok. I started him off on ghost shrimp and have been weening him on to frozen. The problem is when i feed him the krill he goes for it, sucks it half down and then starts coughing and flaring his gills. Hes been eating the krill for a maybe 2 weeks and everytime I feed it to him he does this. Most of the time it goes down and I can see a bulge in his stomach but hes spit it out a few times too. I thought the pieces were too big but when i made them much smaller he still coughed alot. He didn't do this with the much larger ghost shrimp so I'm a little confused. Is this normal or something too be worried about. V Lioness I'm looking at you
.
Also I looked at him this weekend and noticed a small piece of his tail was missing. Hes not bullied or anything so I'm guessing he got it caught in the intake of the power head or something. Will this grow back on its own?
Thanks
 
jon321

jon321

Member
This might be obvious, but are you feeding the frozen food while its still frozen solid? My lionfish do this from time to time, whenever the food is too large, it sucked it in at an awkward angle, or I didnt let the food thaw enough. Other than that, Im not sure.
Jon
 
thoroughbred

thoroughbred

Member
The food is thawed first. Its just weird cause he does this with even the smallest pieces. When I give him ghost shrimp there practically twice as big and he gets them down fine. Maybe he just doesn't like krill...?
 
greenwolf52

greenwolf52

Member
Originally Posted by Thoroughbred
The food is thawed first. Its just weird cause he does this with even the smallest pieces. When I give him ghost shrimp there practically twice as big and he gets them down fine. Maybe he just doesn't like krill...?

my lionfish i had did the same thing. for some reason he just didn't keep the krill. he'd just spit it right out and then not even try to eat any more, but my niger loves krill. if i were you, i'd try some silver sides. that is the only thing my lion always ate. he was very consistent with that.
btw. he was a volitan
 
hammerhed7

hammerhed7

Active Member
my lion does the same thing, not matter what size the pieces are. I don't think it is anything to worry about, as long as he is eating well.
 
v-lioness

v-lioness

Member
Hello, Sorry was out of town, seen the 1.6 million gallon shark tank in Vegas, it was Great.
None of my lions do this, if your lion is young and coughing up food than it may be OK. If your lion is older and doing it, and fed an improper diet or a staple diet of one food, it may be developing a goiter in the throat area or have a thyroid problem. This is usually not noticed until the lion can no longer eat.
How old is the lion?
Yes, the tail will grow back, make sure you have a guard on your power head, they can be very destructive. The guard will normally prevent any mishaps.
Kaye
 
mx#28

mx#28

Active Member
I’ve also had a lionfish that did a seemingly excessive amount of coughing and spitting up food – I got worried and kept making the pieces smaller and smaller to no avail. Since that wasn’t working, I tried larger pieces (like full length silversides, etc) and that was the solution. They seem to appreciate ‘torpedo’ meals – something very long and lean. Don’t know if this will help but it seemed consistent with your comment about the ghost shrimp going down so much better.
 
thoroughbred

thoroughbred

Member
Well thanks for all the responses. The last few times I fed him he didn't cough at all so I'm hoping things will be good from here on out.
Thanks all
 
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