My new fuzzy dwarf lion!

[LongGrain]

My LFS finally got a few fuzzy dwarfs in for me on friday and I snatched one up right away. He's awesome, though he isn't weaned onto dead or frozen food yet, but I did give him 5 small saltwater acclimated mollies today and he hunted them all down (he hadn't eaten since at least friday, and it was probably more like thursday). Still going to work at getting him to eat from tongs/a feeder stick. Anyways, on with the pics.





I'm really excited about him.

[Pufferpunk]

Cool! Be sure to give him a shelf or cave to hang out in.

[LongGrain]

he has a lot of little caves and tunnels to hide in. One big arch in the rock that I made that he seems to like to hover in, and theres just enough space behind the rock for him to hang out there and hide, which he likes to do during the day. He mostly comes out and patrols the tank at night right now, I always wake up in the middle of the night to find him pounding laps looking for food, but each day he gets more social during the day as well. I want to say today he only stayed behind the rocks for about half the time. I'm sure once he gets used to the tank he'll be out and about all day. even right now I still have the lights in my room on and he's hanging on the rocks in the front of the tank.

It was very cool to watch him eat today, since I had tried feeding him every day since friday with no success, but today when I put those mollies in there, he instantly went on the prowl and hunted each and every one down over the course of an hour or two. Going to also give him some sw mysids while still trying to wean him onto frozen foods. He'll probably be the only tank inhabitant for a while, if not indefinitely. I haven't found many other fish that spark my interest like puffers and lions, but with my tank size, I can't really have any more of either without overstocking, though I'm tempted beyond measure to grab the other dwarf fuzzy at the LFS since no one has snatched him up yet. I'll just keep it simple with one fish for now, he has 3 hermit crab tank mates who take care of eating anything he doesn't haha.

[LongGrain]

just snapped a pic of him lounging on some live rock.

[CoCoPuffs]

Very nice.

[chuckfriedrice]

Careful with water changes mine freaks out and seems to try very hard to get me , Ive been too quick for him sofar, LOL

[LongGrain]

I've been away for a while. But this guy is doing really well. He ate mollies for the first 2 weeks, then I prepared for the battle of weening him over to dead food. I bought some frozen krill and vitachem, fishing line, and a section of thin clear tubing to use as a feeding stick. I synched a krill in the fishing line for attempt number one, and to my amazement he pretty much attacked it before I even got a chance to get it in the tank. he accidentally caught the line though somehow and must have tightened the line down and wasn't able to get the krill, so he high tailed it out of there and hid for a minute or two. Then I figured I was trying to hard and just started dropping pieces in there for him, he ate each and every one of them without hesitation and has been ever since. He even eats right from my hand on occasion.

I've been building up a clean up crew for him, I did have 3 dwarf hermits (now down to two, found an empty shell and have no idea where the little guy went). and now 4 nessarius snails.

I developed a bit of a nitrate problem due to my test results being inaccurate for the first month or so, but regular water changes are putting that back in check. I had a diatom bloom as well, but they seem to be going away, and i've noticed more and more red and pink coraline algae growth giving my rock some color.

some new pictures.

[bertie 83]

Very nice

[DrKennethNoisewater]

beautiful fish i have always wanted one!!

[Arny]

Cool fish you got there mate

How big will he get?

[FADE2BLACK_1973]

Love lionfishes. My very 1st marine. was a dwarf lionfish, back in 1992. Loved this guy.

[LongGrain]

took a short video clip of this guy since he's camera shy and its hard to get a decent still shot of him.

Since embedding on this forum seems to be impossible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_mcrdnxI8o

[FADE2BLACK_1973]

Nice looking lil fuzzy lion.

Man, how I so miss my lions. Lions was the whole reason I started a marine tank back in 1992. And my very 1st SW fish was a beautiful Zebra dwarf lionfish. The fishsop had 2 very small ones and I bought one, should have bought both though. I was feeding him guppies that I raised. As he grew, I started feeding him silversides.

[kcartwright856]

Your LR is very pretty!

[LongGrain]

hey thanks, its actually dry rock thats slowly starting to color up with pink/purple/greens. I'm not balling enough to afford 60lb's of live rock, so I have one good sized chunk of bali rock in there to seed 50lbs of marco rocks key largo dry rock. the tank has been going strong for 4 months or so now and the rocks are really starting to look nice, I can see new growth daily pretty much.

he used to eat saltwater mollies when I first got him, it took me about a week to get him to eat krill, so thats what he eats most of the time, always soaked in vita-chem. I'm currently trying to find a local supermarket where I can get some uncooked clams/squid/etc to give him more variety, but all I've been able to find is pre steamed or cooked seafood.