Sunfish any experience?

[Wallyfish]

Does anyone have any experience with keeping sunfish in thier tank? I was thinking that it might be cool to keep some dwarf sunfish. It seems like sunfish are not very popular aquarium fish as I haven't seen them in pet stores.

[Sasquatch]

Well, I don't have a lot of experience, but I have kept a few rock bass and that didn't work out too well.

The first piece of advice would be to find out about the biology of the fish. What they eat, how they live, ideal water conditions/temperature. One possible resource would be FishBase (www.fishbase.org) and it should give you general info about the fish and what it's prefered diet is. Once you know about how the fish lives, try to replicate that in an aquarium setting.

From my experiences with Rock Bass, live foods are essential. Wild fish will have trouble converting to flakes/pellets. If you want to acclimate them to a flake/pellet diet, start with live foods and gradually start replacing the live stuff with the prepared diets.

Best of luck and keep us posted. I eventually want to do a similar tank setup with sunfish and minnows from my area, just have to get a house for a decent sized aquarium.

[Drumachine09]

Sunfish arent a very popular aquarium fish, because..... well..... i dont know. But i spent most of my days as a little kid fishing for them in the creek. They can grow up to 14 inches, and LOVE corn. That is the best perch bait ever. I personally would not introduce a wild one into a tank, because of the diseases and such that they can cause, and they can also be quite sickly and grow tumor like growths on the base of their dorsal fin. I wouldnt even try to introduce one for a bait house, because they still arent properly kept for. They can also be quite messy.

[Wallyfish]

I am considering sunfish because they are more unique as aquarium fish. So many people have tetras and guppys. There are probably more people with arowanas and piranhas than sunfish. I want maybe a small tank with pygmy sunfish as they only grow to be a little over an inch in length so they are more manageable. I think I will need to feed them small live worms however as they don't like flakes or pellets.

[jman]

can you provide a pic so i can match it with mine

[Wallyfish]

http://www.outdooralabama.com/fishing/images/SunfishSpringPygmy400.jpg

Thats a spring pygmy sunfish. There are other varieties. Some of the species are endangered or threatened.

[jman]

o-o.k. that is different

[Sasquatch]

Well, my fish atlas says they like vegetated pools, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem to replicate in an aquarium. Any kind of small diet should do the trick, ideally bloodworms and zooplankton (daphnia, brine shrimp).

Where are you getting them from? Are you going out in the wild and netting them or are you buying them?

[Wallyfish]

I have no idea where a petstore would carry them unfortunately. I'm just considering getting some at the moment. I suppose I could do some research and go net one but its hard trying to get a particular type of fish. The smaller species of sunfish might be less common than the larger growing ones. That seems like a lot of effort so I'm hoping theres a place I can get them from. :1:

[pes142]

Sunfish make great aquarium fish if you know what you are getting into. They are basically American Oscars, i would guess is a good comparison. A bigger tank, no heater, and they will be fine

[cocoa_pleco]

this thread is 1.5 years old

[troy]

Yeah, old thread.