Getting Bluegill to Breed

It all started when we caught our first bluegill from the stream flowing through our property that we instantly fell in love with the animal, they have a beautiful body, put up a good fight, and are one of the best tasting fish we have ever had.

Soon after catching some of the critters we got the bright idea to try our hand at establishing a fish farm using only recirculating areated systems.

Now one year since we had this bright idea we have learned a lot. Including California state laws, the piss poor quality of fish and customer service of fish farmers in the state of California, how to establish a system to support large quantities of fish and at the same time clean out large quantities of waste, and most importantly how to train wild bluegill, green sunfish, and red ear sunfish to accept artifical feed.

Now though we have hit a brick wall of sorts. And this brick wall is getting the little buggers to start breeding.
So far all of our fish seem to do is gather up when we arrive like little puppy dogs, and eat alot.. Besides that they just swim around.

Besides this the fish did go through a winter cycle since they were all taken from the outdoors during winter, and have not truly been heated. Could the shock and stress of the fish being transported to a strange and far away land reset their spawning cycle?

Additional info:
Their are 70+ Bluegill, Greensunfish, and Shellcracker ranging from 5"-1ft in length, about a 50/50 mix male to female. Most of the male fish are showing breeding coloration (dark spots, bronze full colored chests) and the females are loaded with so many eggs they look as if they will pop.

The water temperature is kept at about 77degrees (peaking at 81 degrees on the hottest of days)

They are fed a diet of artifical feed (51% protein)+ all the daphnia they can swallow.

They are currently housed in a 1400 gallon pool, and inside of that are 3 kiddie pools filled with sand,gravel,plants (generally all the comforts of home)

The fish all just seem to do is want to eat. Even though they have all the signs of being capable of breeding they show zero interest at all in establishing a nesting site, they barely interact with each other except to remove the odd anchor worm from their buddies backside.

Can it be that the fish need to go through a full winter in their new pool enviroment?
Or is it only a matter of time before the fish just do their thang?

Whenever there aren't babies there are a few things that might be happening:
1. Babies aren't being made.
2. Babies are being made but aren't surviving

#1 could be because the parents aren't in breeding condition (solution: get them to eat more) or because they lack the materials or the spawning trigger (solution: add the spawning trigger for that specific species).
#2 could be due to babies being eaten by larger fish (solution: add more baby-sized hiding places) or because they're starving to death (solution: feed water with baby food before seeing babies).

"Most of the male fish are showing breeding coloration (dark spots, bronze full colored chests) and the females are loaded with so many eggs they look as if they will pop."
The fish sound in good enough physical condition to be laying eggs, assuming they have the right spawning conditions.

"They are currently housed in a 1400 gallon pool, and inside of that are 3 kiddie pools filled with sand,gravel,plants (generally all the comforts of home)" Sounds like you have the right setup. Maybe the temperature drop is really important, but based on this bluegill distribution map I doubt it: http://nas2.er.usgs.... &speciesid=385
Get some pictures/video of bluegill spawning in the wild and check out what substrate, current, time of day they're doing it at. Maybe you're lacking some very small spawning trigger. 77 does seem pretty hot; maybe they're just too hot to spawn. But at the same time the distribution ranges down to the bottom tip of Florida, so it seems like they'd manage somehow.

"They are fed a diet of artifical feed (51% protein)+ all the daphnia they can swallow."
Daphnia are good food for babies.

So what remains to be asked is, what hiding spaces have you designed for the babies to be able to avoid predation by their parents? Do you have a picture or diagram of your setup? Plants work really well but you can also use artificial size barriers like egg crate.

Edited by EricaWieser, 10 July 2012 - 07:41 AM.

Sam,

If interested then contact me. I breed them indoors a lot.

Jim

@ Erica

The tank is somewhat baren due to the fact the plants inside are designed for the average aquarium. Though we put in a lot of plants and enough substrate to cover 2/3s of the pool (each kiddie pool taking up quite a bit of space).

As for the babies getting preyed upon, we were hoping that when they do the deed that the male BG will kick enough but so that we can remove all the other fish and also create a barrier around the male(s) and his (their) nests. In doing this we belive it would allow for the highest mount of control over the young.

@Centrarchid
PM sent.

Sam,

We are process of upgrading our lab which has compenents directly related to what your concerns are. We can and will shortly produce fry on a scale that is produced by a small commercial producer although we do hatchery side indoors to control reproduction keeping broods of desired ages and number of fish appropriate for growout facilities.

As we go, I can have students generate pictures of systems and to provide descriptions as to how we manage them for spawning and rearing of fry. More pictures of your setup will be helpfull.

Sam,

As we go, I can have students generate pictures of systems and to provide descriptions as to how we manage them for spawning and rearing of fry. More pictures of your setup will be helpfull.

I will be able to provide pictures of the setup tomorrow night.
Are you operating at the university level?

As we go, I can have students generate pictures of systems and to provide descriptions as to how we manage them for spawning and rearing of fry.

That would be really interesting. I bet a lot of NANFAns would want to read that.

I will be able to provide pictures of the setup tomorrow night.
Are you operating at the university level?

Yes, university level. We are rebooting the wetlab into a new building and documenting changes for the big wigs. Components to be detailed with pictures for ultimate use in website.

If anyone else has any experince.. any experince at all breeding panfish in captivity your information would be greatly appreciated.

Such as did they go through a cold period
How long they lived in the tank/pool/aquarium
How crowded was the tank/pool/aquarium
Did other fish of different species breed before they did
ETC

Sam, backup and go simple. They do not require a winter simulation.

Photoperiod of 16 light: 8 dark with a night light going 24 / 7 will meet lighting needs. Minimum intensity I do not know but 75 watt bulb from 4 feet away adequate.

Temperature range 72 to 82 F works but we target upper part of range. They will spawn warmer readily and lower occasionally.

Nutrition involves quality compounded formulations for salmon / trout. I like to hand feed to ensure fish are relaxed around keeper. Live foods not needed but can fill gaps when formulated diet is less than optimal. I like to feed them with brine shrimp nauplii on occasion.

Housing requirements extremely flexible but my preference is to have males at least in colony setting as such reduces stress on female(s). Bare bottom tanks best with gravel filled bowls of some sort surving as nest. Thread on that somewhere.


We can get them up to 2 lbs indoors but such males on nest seem to have health issues causing them to drop out of breeding population. I suspect the grew too fast causing skeletol problems. Takes us 3 years to get them that big. Can get them to 1.5 lbs in 24 months.

centrachid would the fish being to acquainted with humans be a detrement for them breeding or is it a good thing?
As of now all of the fish do the whole swim to wherever we walk to and beg for food, without fail, at all hours of the day/night

Easiest bluegill to breed are those not stressed / scared by your presence. We have difficulties with wild-caught broodstock but not with genetically identical cultured animals. The nuture issue is very important in ease of spawning. You still may want to be able to observe fish while they are on nest as such enables estimation of breeding activity. Fish that come off nest to eat are hard to read for presence of brood even though they are actually easier to have spawn in confinement. I like to be able see from distance if male is brooding. If each nest must be handled each time you survey for spawns, fish will get stressed and be less in mood to breed.

To get around, you can be very stereotyped where applying feed so that you can visit but fish will have interest in food only when food is to be offered.

Well thats good to know, as of right now they have 0 fear from the presence of me and or my dad. But do experince some stress when any outsider comes (even if they are 100ft away from the pool) its as if the sound of how they walk sets off alarms for the fish.

Additionaly I remeber hearing that for bluegill we should feed them until satiation when they are willing to feed. But these guys seem to never reach satiation no matter how much the eat.

Whats your experince with feeding them Centrarchid? Do you feed them only a given amount or do you feed until they stop?

Feeding regimen varies with lifestage and purpose for fish. Sticking to broodfish for now, fish are fed to apparent satiation twice daily Monday though Friday and once on Saturday. First feeding each day around 0800 and second when applied at 1600. When we are pushing for size then fish are fed with 24-hour belt feeders loaded so fish eat just under what is all they will eat during same time interval. Pushing for maximum growth is actually hard on animals increasing water quality issues and in my opinion compromising longevity. Also, fat fish are not always the best breeders. The compounded diets are likely not optimal for conditioning broodfish and may cause problems.

I like to hand feed and to have fish still a little hungry when leaving a tank. Such fed fish seem more virile.

Centrachid are you anyway affiliated with these people? http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G9473

We just changed the light setting for the pool, from 18/6 to 16/8.

And you starve your fish for 1 day out of the week? interesting.

We hand feed our fish as well, the only bad thing is that we are becoming attatched to them and their cute little faces..

Additionally Centrachid would the presence of other fish species deter Bluegills from breeding? namely Koi and Goldfish?

We included these fish in with our natives solely for the purpose of cleaning up uneaten food on the bottom of our pool and the koi assit in "cleaning" parasites from some of the Bluegill.

Hicks is co-worker, Pierce is an acquatance.

Feed with held for 36 hours is not starving. We have run trials to see is any effects and fish not fed on Sunday and Saturday evening over course of week consumed as much and grew as fast as those fed twice daily every day. With labor considerations, the least intensive is way to go. We still check animals at times they would otherwise be fed so we see their faces.

If you are in California, then bluegill are not native either. The freshwater native species there are emperiled because of all the introduced species including bluegill in addition to the habitat management emplyoed. California, as I understand it, is a mess.

We routinely breed bluegill in the presence of redear and have done it with pumpkinseed, green sunfish, various types of longear, and warmouth. We also had an infestation of convict cichlids which had a breeding colony dispersed amoung bluegill nest. For a while we also had redfin shiners doing their spawning bit in our larger bluegill breeding tank. For management considerations having mixed species assemblages can complicate getting correct species repressented in broods to be reared. Some species can be distinguished as larvae by naked eye, others not. Also issue of hybridization can be a problem.

You want control in an aquaculture setting and multiple species can make control difficult.

Koi to my knowledge will not clean parasites from bluegill, most likely to be other way around.

centrachid what would you say is the average time it takes for Bluegill to begin breeding with all conditions being optimal? (such as the correct temperature, substrate provided, fish are well fed, and stress free)

Should it be immediate? Or does it take the fish several days, weeks, and or months before breeding to occur?

Variable. Sometimes 24 hours, sometimes two weeks. On average, when I setup a colony on Friday, males start "spinning up" by Tuesday of next week with first spawn evident a a day or so later. Spawns tend to be clumped in time. Real limiting factor is females getting ripe.

Sorry im picking your brain so much Centrarchid.

Do you spawn your bluegills in large pools? or do you condition them then move them into smaller tanks?

Spawn most in 75-gal aquariums or 225-gal tanks. Some spawned in 1200-gal tank when simply a numbers or a single brood of no particular breeding needed. Also get tons of voluntary breeding in ponds.