Pumpkinseed Aquarium size.

Hello all.

I was brousing the Peterson's guide and was a little surprised to see Lepomis gibbosus listed as reaching 40cm. Would this species reach that size, or anything like, in an aquarium and what would be the average attainable size? Purely for my own curiosity, we can't keep these in the UK.

Many thanks in advance.

I've never even seen a wild specimen over 8 inches or so, but I guess it's possible.

The biggest Pumpkiseed I've caught angling is around 8.5", however there are others on here who have captured or witnessed Pumpkinseeds well over 10" long.

Using a seine in a small pond in Massachusetts, we'd catch p-seeds as long as 12 inches.

My scoutmaster when I was in boyscouts many years ago caught a huge 12 incher out of a small farm pond, the rest of us couldn't get one bigger then 4 inches. I've dreamed of a large tank with one like that it was gorgeous and almost totally round. Used to have fishing spot where 8-10 inchers were common never did find another 12 incher though.

Hello all.

I was brousing the Peterson's guide and was a little surprised to see Lepomis gibbosus listed as reaching 40cm. Would this species reach that size, or anything like, in an aquarium and what would be the average attainable size? Purely for my own curiosity, we can't keep these in the UK.

Many thanks in advance.

I can get mine up to 16 cm from hatch in two years when fed a diet containing >40% crude protein. This is based on several dozen fish raised in 150-L aquariums. Temperatures may have actually have been warmer than optimal. I have messed with pumpkinseed sourced from two locations; northern Indiana, and north central Ohio. I have not seen any of those I raised to exceede 20 cm even when taken out to 4 years of age with year round growth. Other stocks may have different growth potentials. Approximate exceptions might involve hybrids with redear sunfish. Tank reared pumpkinseed x redear do grow faster and larger than pure pumpkinseeds although not as fast as pure redear. Even pure redear, the largest repressentative of the genus Lepomis has a hard time reaching 40 cm so to me such large pumpkinseeds seems unlikely.

Do you have an extant introduced pumpkinseed population near London?

Thanks for the replies.

Do you have an extant introduced pumpkinseed population near London?

Populations in the South of England for sure. I've heard reliable reports of them in the Leeds and Liverpool canal systems also, in the North of England. I'm pretty sure there must be someone over here who keeps them in captivity, they're very secretive about it though.

144% maximum size.

I know someone with a 6 1/2 inch Dollar Sunfish, indoors, tank-raised. Peterson's says Dollar Sunfish get up to 4 1/2 inch.

Sure, it's tank-raised.