GreenGill or just a Green?

Wondering if he is a straight green, or a green & bluegill hybrid. Caught at a city pond that I know for a fact was completely drained about 2 years ago. so figure must be something from a fish farm.

Anyone know about their temperment? Would be nice to keep him in my pond with the goldfish, koi and bluegills.

Thanks
Shorty

This is a first time saying this, and it won't happen often.

This is a hybrid, bluegill x green.

I agree, it's a greengill.

I agree also, looks like a greengill

to address your other question... they are a little more aggressive than bluegill (but in a pond of any size I wouldn't be worried, and it will get to a similar size as the bluegill.

Thanks for the confirmation guys -- I am new at this, and read a bunch of the existing threads in this forum before posting. One of the other threads described one way to tell was because the spot on it's gill didn't have a light border, plus the proportions of length to height.

I saw the directory of fish photos - it is a great resource ! Love how on all the photos have lines & descriptions pointing to important factors for identifying the fish, really helps novices like me. Is there a similar directory for identifying hybrids?

Aggression -- I have read all sorts of stuff where people describe bluegill as being very aggressive, and shouldn't be kept with goldfish. I have a 180 gallon pond (going to rip it out soon and replace with 1500), and have 3 bluegills in there with 5 goldfish and 2 small koi. Haven't seen any aggression that is worth mentioning, the largest gill stays in one spot, and when the goldfish wander into his spot, he gives them a little nudge out of his spot, and that is it. During feeding time, they all kinda hover around my hand, and snatch the stuff as I drop it.

I tried a blue tiliapia, and another time a texas cichlid - both of them were VERY aggressive, they would chase various other fish all around the pond, and nip at them continually.

So is the bluegill aggression people describe only present in small aquariums? What kind of behaviour do they do in aquariums?

Thanks
Shorty

to address your other question... they are a little more aggressive than bluegill (but in a pond of any size I wouldn't be worried, and it will get to a similar size as the bluegill.

Often with sunfish aggression is directed toward other sunfish. Mine seem to ignore catfish and larger fish such as suckers. Even toward other sunfish if they have space to set up territories they tend to stick to their area and just chase one another more than do any actual physical harm. When you run into trouble is when you put a breeding pair in a relatively small tank with no where for the female to hide, you might as well have taken the female out and killed it yourself because the male will kill her rather quickly. But in your case in a pond they have plenty of room, actually if you didn't have the goldfish they would probably breed in the summer (goldfish and koi tend to eat eggs) and who knows you may have enough space when you upgrade that it won't matter that the gold fish are there if you have some thick plant cover near where the bluegill (or other sunfish species) choose to spawn for the fry to hide in.

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How old / big do bluegill need to be before they start breeding? The 3 I currently have are 5.5 - 6.5" right now. Got them about a year ago when they were 4" long, so guessing they are 2 years old? Do you know how to sex them?

Had idea to encourage breeding -- put milk crate in pond, open side up. Attach plastic leaves all around the crate. Top edge of crate is at the water level, so it basically creates a cavity which possibly the fry can swim into, but the bigger fish can't. Then check it every now and then to see if any fry are in there, scoop out and move to separate tank. Think it will work - or have a better idea?

Thanks
Shorty

Often with sunfish aggression is directed toward other sunfish. Mine seem to ignore catfish and larger fish such as suckers. Even toward other sunfish if they have space to set up territories they tend to stick to their area and just chase one another more than do any actual physical harm. When you run into trouble is when you put a breeding pair in a relatively small tank with no where for the female to hide, you might as well have taken the female out and killed it yourself because the male will kill her rather quickly. But in your case in a pond they have plenty of room, actually if you didn't have the goldfish they would probably breed in the summer (goldfish and koi tend to eat eggs) and who knows you may have enough space when you upgrade that it won't matter that the gold fish are there if you have some thick plant cover near where the bluegill (or other sunfish species) choose to spawn for the fry to hide in.

I think most sunfish are mature at 2 years maybe 3 yours certainly sound large enough to spawn. large mature bluegill are not too dificult to sex, males tend to get a orange or even rusty red color to their belly and females are white or yellow in the same area. This unfortunately does not seem to hold true all year, like most sunfish durring cooler weather the colors fade considerably. Also in my experience of breeding sunfish it realy doesn't take much. I have water hyacinths (floating pond plants) in the ponds and those seem to provide enough cover for the young fish, they hide in the roots that hang down. If you only have 3 or 4 bluegill in 1500 gallons and your feeding them well, I don't see how you wouldn't end up with young by the end of the summer if you at least have one of each sex. The goldfish would be my concern. It may also help to have some gravel in a shallow area of the pond for them to build a nest on. I actually use plastic disposable plates with gravel in them and the sunfish tend to clear away the gravel and spawn on the plates. One other thing that can help sex them at times is simply watching their behavior, males are more agressive and often set up more permanent territories than females.

The prospect of breeding the blugills is exciting. Is there a certain month or water temperature change that will give me an indication when they will spawn, and when I should start looking for the fry? And what do the fry look like? Also do you think the GreenGill will breed with the bluegill ?

If it is temperature related, I should probably mention that last year my pond got down to around 44 F degrees in the winter, and in the summer it gets up to around 90 F. This winter, while it was dropping down to 50 degrees, I bought a 300 watt aquarium heater and was able to bring the temperature back up to 65-68 during most days over the winter.

I'll try the plastic plate trick -- so just to get you straight, you put gravel on the plate, and they push the gravel off, and the eggs go onto the bare plate? Kinda strange, my first reaction is -- wouldn't they want to hide their eggs in the gravel ?

Sexing behavior - the largest one has his corner, the 2nd largest has another spot on the opposite side, and the 3rd (smallest) seems to swim around and doesn't have a specific territory. So from this we could guess that 1 and 2 are males, and 3 is a female. I just figured that it was because of age, 1 is oldest and largest with 3 the smallest.

So how many bluegills do you have / how long / what kind of tank etc?

Shorty

I think most sunfish are mature at 2 years maybe 3 yours certainly sound large enough to spawn. large mature bluegill are not too dificult to sex, males tend to get a orange or even rusty red color to their belly and females are white or yellow in the same area. This unfortunately does not seem to hold true all year, like most sunfish durring cooler weather the colors fade considerably. Also in my experience of breeding sunfish it realy doesn't take much. I have water hyacinths (floating pond plants) in the ponds and those seem to provide enough cover for the young fish, they hide in the roots that hang down. If you only have 3 or 4 bluegill in 1500 gallons and your feeding them well, I don't see how you wouldn't end up with young by the end of the summer if you at least have one of each sex. The goldfish would be my concern. It may also help to have some gravel in a shallow area of the pond for them to build a nest on. I actually use plastic disposable plates with gravel in them and the sunfish tend to clear away the gravel and spawn on the plates. One other thing that can help sex them at times is simply watching their behavior, males are more agressive and often set up more permanent territories than females.