Misc. Problems

second things first

For debris, the simplest thing to do is siphon it off during the water change. Every once in a while, I blast the rocks with a powerhead to get the stuff out of the cracks. I don't normally run mechanical filtration, so I'll put in a Hagen Quikfilter in to catch the debris. If you have mechanical media in the filters, then there's not much you have to do besides blasting the rocks to get the stuff into the water column.

No clue about the lion, sorry.

one of 3 things is going to happen with the Lion.

1.) He will never eat prepared/frozens. You'll keep giving live food.

2.) He will eventually get so hungry he will eat anything.

3.) he will die of starvation.

The trick is figuring out the fishe's threshold. Sooner or later if you don't feed it he will get hungry and probably try to eat the frozen food you offer. However you don't want to wait too long and kill it if it continues to refuse it.

The fish should easily be able to go 5 to 7 days with no food. I would feed it a meal you know it will eat today, then wait 3 days and try to feed frozens, if it refuses try again the next day, and so on until day 6 or 7. Observe the fish, if it looks like it's not doing good but still refuses the prepared foods, offer it live.

The other question is how are you trying to feed?

Do you just drop in the food, use a feeding stick? I would try stringing up some food on a fishing string and dangle it in the tank for a while, maybe an hour or so. Give it a jerk every now and then and see if it bites.

And the other problem, are there any fish competing for the food? I had a trigger with a lion fish once, and the trigger would eat up any frozen foods before the lion could even see it was in the tank. same went for live foods actually and I ended up having to take back the lion fish.

I have had luck with formula one and krill for my dwarf lion. He is very picky though it has to be cut to the perfect size and moving in the water. I use a turkey baster and release the food very close to his head so the other fish don't steal it. He eats every other day but sometimes will go a few days without eating.

The best advice I can give is be patient and stock your freezer with a wide variety and experiment until you find out what he likes.

Lionfish can go a while without eating. I've known of several that were only feed once a week. When I had mine I waited ten days then dropped cut up shrimp in front of him. He ate it, He also learned to eat cut up squid and scallops that were dropped in front of him. When he saw me with a baggy in my hand he would tilt upwards and watch for me to drop it in. But each one is different. Some I've seen only took food from a feeding stick or never took to anything but live foods.

Ray