Your experience with a Volitan Lionfish?

[ponokareefer]

1. Agree with the puppy comparison. It's cool to have a fish that acts all excited when you enter the room. If you like to watch a hunt and buy live food, it can be very fun.
2. They are very easy to keep, and very peacefull tank mates, if you don't fit into their mouth.
3. Anything I put in the tank for other fish, it ate, including flaked food and pellets. I'd agree that feeding silversides by hand is a lot of fun. They will attack the food, but never bit my fingers.
4. I found some cheap damsels that I would throw in occassionally and watch the hunt. This was the most entertaining. I never fed it anything FW as everything I read, and was told by the place I bought it, that it can make them sick.
5. Mine was the exact same in that, if it thought it would get fed, it woke up. So, if I walked close to the tank, it woke up, just like a dog. Mine would always sleep straight up and down, so even if it was sleeping, it was worth some entertainment laughing at it.
6. It never ate any shrimp, but any fish it could get into its mouth was gone. If it had to hunt a fish for a week, it would without eating anything else.
7. Mine grew very fast. I would say it doubled in size in under a year. It was only about 2.5 inches long when I first got it in a 125 gallon tank.
8. If you have any smaller fish that you like, even if it is especially good at hiding, it will be gone. It was overly friendly when I would put my hand in the tank to fix rocks/clean and would occassionlly brush my arm with its mouth/body. It would also sometimes get mad and stick a brush I cleaned with with its spines. It got to the point where everytime I put my hand in, I had to get someone else to put the brush in and "coral" it to the other side of the tank. Also, the little ones fins and "eyebrows" are very long and beautiful, but the fish were so clumsy, that it would break them occassionally. By the time I got rid of it, its fins were all much shorter, and the beauty of the animal was much less. Also, do some reading on what to do if you get stung. I've heard it can be very nasty as they get larger.

[Zoaelite]

I would love to have a nice long post :\ Unfortuantly I had mine for a day and then it got sucked into my powerhead(Here comes some Delphinus Humour ) I guess you could say he wasnt very Sucksecfull or that he had a very Suckinct speach to the powerhead... Stupid Hagen and there crapy products.
Levi

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Had mine in the 80s & it was a great fish. I used to hand-feed it, so I could feed it smelts or squid or any other seafood we were having for dinner. Grew it from a little guy to a 14" adult. Then one day, while cleaning its tank, after I shooed it into the corner with a net, I heard a fish jump in another tank & knock the hood askew. So I naturally looked over my shoulder at the other tank & then my Volitan swam over looking for a snack when I wasn't looking & I got 2 shots of toxin from 2 dorsal spines in my finger on the right hand. Before I could finish the thought "this is going to hurt", the pain shot through & let me tell you, it was by far the worst pain ever. I've busted my knee several times, fractured a wrist, cut open my head, but none of that even came close. I ended up pouring almost boiling hot water over my right arm and getting all burned & blistered just to stop the poison from reaching my internal organs. At one point, I was screaming at my brother to cut off my arm since I could feel the poison almost to my chest cavity & I figured I'd rather lose an arm than a vital organ. (Now I'm glad he didn't listen)

Sold the Volitan the next day.

BTW, this happened over a decade before magnet glass cleaners were invented.

Anthony

[Pan]

Originally Posted by SeaHorse_Fanatic

Had mine in the 80s & it was a great fish. I used to hand-feed it, so I could feed it smelts or squid or any other seafood we were having for dinner. Grew it from a little guy to a 14" adult. Then one day, while cleaning its tank, after I shooed it into the corner with a net, I heard a fish jump in another tank & knock the hood askew. So I naturally looked over my shoulder at the other tank & then my Volitan swam over looking for a snack when I wasn't looking & I got 2 shots of toxin from 2 dorsal spines in my finger on the right hand. Before I could finish the thought "this is going to hurt", the pain shot through & let me tell you, it was by far the worst pain ever. I've busted my knee several times, fractured a wrist, cut open my head, but none of that even came close. I ended up pouring almost boiling hot water over my right arm and getting all burned & blistered just to stop the poison from reaching my internal organs. At one point, I was screaming at my brother to cut off my arm since I could feel the poison almost to my chest cavity & I figured I'd rather lose an arm than a vital organ. (Now I'm glad he didn't listen)

Sold the Volitan the next day.

BTW, this happened over a decade before magnet glass cleaners were invented.

Anthony

Exacttly why they made eggcrate in the first place....nice little undersea prisons can be made from it

[Zoaelite]

Originally Posted by 'Ol Nobodaddy

Exacttly why they made eggcrate in the first place....nice little undersea prisons can be made from it

And I thought they made egg crate for Eggs Sorry im just in a
Eggscruciating punfull mood today.
Levi

[Pan]

Originally Posted by i2as kass

And I thought they made egg crate for Eggs Sorry im just in a
Eggscruciating punfull mood today.
Levi

Ugh...eggsasperating

[bulletsworld]

Originally Posted by SeaHorse_Fanatic

I wasn't looking & I got 2 shots of toxin from 2 dorsal spines in my finger on the right hand. Before I could finish the thought "this is going to hurt", the pain shot through & let me tell you, it was by far the worst pain ever. I've busted my knee several times, fractured a wrist, cut open my head, but none of that even came close. I ended up pouring almost boiling hot water over my right arm and getting all burned & blistered just to stop the poison from reaching my internal organs. At one point, I was screaming at my brother to cut off my arm since I could feel the poison almost to my chest cavity & I figured I'd rather lose an arm than a vital organ. (Now I'm glad he didn't listen) Sold the Volitan the next day.

HOLY CRAP! I had no idea it was THAT bad (being stung)! YIKS!!!! You could actually feel the poison movin in your body?

[bulletsworld]

Did you too ever get stung by a Volitan Lionfish? What did you do???

Did you go to the hospital?

[Zoaelite]

[quote=bulletsworld;269300] HOLY CRAP! I had no idea it was THAT bad (being stung)! YIKS!!!! You could actually feel the poison movin in your body? [/QUOTE

I got bit by a Hermit Crab Before... That was pretty bad. Mind you it latched onto my hand for over an hour and a half.

[Pan]

[quote=i2as kass;269308]

Originally Posted by bulletsworld

HOLY CRAP! I had no idea it was THAT bad (being stung)! YIKS!!!! You could actually feel the poison movin in your body? [/QUOTE

I got bit by a Hermit Crab Before... That was pretty bad. Mind you it latched onto my hand for over an hour and a half.

Why on earth did you let it?