Lionfish questions

How often do you feed?

 

I feed Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

 

Are they really messy? Puffers are so I imagine that they will be relatively the same.

Will there be any tank mates that I should avoid?

 

They actually aren't messy at all. If you feed them an appropriately sized portion of food, they will swallow it whole.

 

There is a reason that lionfish hunting has become a sport on the reefs all over the world. They ruin them! I wouldnt waste your money. Chances are in your favor but freak things happen.

 

They aren't being hunted all over the world. We are trying to control them in areas where they are a non-indigenous species, thus lacking natural predators of their own.

If you stock appropriately you won't have a problem. They don't "hurt" the corals, they eat the smaller fish found on the reefs. If you don't stock edible-sized fish, they won't be lunch.

I wouldn't try SPS, (besides maybe something easy like a monti cap) as your water quality may not be as good as it needs to be, but LPS and softies will be perfectly fine.

What species of lion were you looking at? Recommended tankmates will be based on that. But as a general rule, avoid fish that can't help but chew on flowing fins. Lionfish fins can be very tempting.

 

I like the antenna lionfish, and the only thing I would worry about with my water quality is my anemones

 

Ohhhhh..... a nice medium-bodied lionfish. Good choice. These like a little better water quality then some, but to be honest, once established they all can tolerate pretty rough conditions for the most part. Lions are a heavy bioload, not a dirty fish. By that I mean their body is going to process a lot of food and excrete a lot of ammonia. Your nitrates will bottle neck at the end of that equation, but if you can commit to some good waterchanges, you'll be golden. People mess up their tanks more when they pour food into the water column to feed their fish. Some is lost in the overflow, behind rocks etc, to create dirt and excessive detritus. You will not have this happen with a fish fed appropriately from a stick.

What is your setup? How big is it? Lights?

 

It's a 55 with a coralife 4bulb t5 with ati bulbs. 70 lbs of sand and 50lbs live rock, want to add a bit more to top it off though.

I have 2 anemones, a mushroom and 2 zoas. My wife bought a tang( I know it's not right but were upgrading to a 200 gallon during Christmas)