Pumpkinseed, SM Bass, and Perch feeding

I am new to NAs but not to fish keeping.

I have two Pumpkinseeds, a SM bass, and a Yellow perch. I had both Sunfish in the same tank but the bigger one always chased the smaller one so I put it in a different tank with the Perch. Also I keep both tanks stocked with African and Central American cichlids. No problems in the last 7 months as they are all about the same size 6" plus. They never fight, except for the Sunfish vs Sunfish problem. Anyway on to the question.

I feed the Sunfish/Bass/Perch the following - Jumbo Krill, Earthworms, Night crawlers, superworms, and the occasional cricket. They also eat the cichlid pellets that I toss in. Are there any problems with this combo of food? Is there anything that I should add or remove from their diets?

I feed the superworms baby rice and oatmeal flakes, along with regular oatmeal and toss in an orange or slice of watermelon. I feed the crickets vegetables and fruits before I feed them to the fish.

The bass prefers live food but will take pellets and the dead stuff.

Also, I caught these fish out of the pond on my land and was thinking about releasing them back this summer and catching a new group... Any problems with re-releasing them back into my pond?

Also, I caught these fish out of the pond on my land and was thinking about releasing them back this summer and catching a new group... Any problems with re-releasing them back into my pond?

You were doing great up until this point. Once you introduce wild fish into a closed aquarium system, you introduce them to new pathogens that they may have never come into contact with in the wild. This is almost certain to be true in your case as your natives were exposed to exotics that have been through all the different layers of the pet industry supply chain before coming to your home.

You're better off keeping them, trading/selling/gifting them to another ethical fish keeper, or as a worst case scenario destroying them rather than putting them back into the local watershed. Some guys even eat their aquarium fish that have overgrown their tanks (hey, pacu is quite tasty once you get past all the floating bones *burp*)

Your food menu sounds great. You can augment that with wild caught tadpoles and other locally caught insects. If you take any worms, it would be a good idea to let them purge their guts for 24 hours before feeding them to the fish. You can let them loose in a container with some moistened newsprint for this purpose. For other live foods, your gut loading approach is a good one.

Don't try feeding them lightning bugs or ladybugs, though! (or anything else that might be toxic) Frogs are good live food but toads are not (bufotoxin)

Yeah, definitely do not release them back in the wild. If you really don't want them I'm sure there's a few people on the board that would take them. Are they getting too big or giving you problems of some sort?

No problem whatsoever with releasing them back into your pond so long as it is a closed system and does not overflow into your local watershed.

Your feeds are outstanding!

I might be a little more cautions than others but I'd not release your fish even if into your private pond. Since you keep your N/A's with C/A'a and Africans I'm extra nervous. Anytime you take natives for aquarium use you should expect to keep them for life no exceptions. Even if you kept your natives with only other natives the risk of releasing disease into the wild is still possible. Has your pond ever come in contact with flood water? Can you be sure it will never come in contact with flood water? The risk seems high for the benefit.

Thanks for all the quick responses. I am not having any problems with them, I was doing this first as an experiment. I figured that the tank NAs would grow fast over the winter since I keep the water at 80, and feed them 2-3 times a day. These things have grown like crazy but they will still fit in my 210 that I am going to start. I was gonna put them back into the pond and catch some new ones out of Perch river and Black River. I planned on putting the new fish in a quarantine 29 gallon to check for parasites and not let the new ones in with my cichlids since we had that bad fish virus here during the fall. I am right on the mouth of the black river as it feeds into lake ontario so I was actually worried about introducing something into my aquarium, not the other way around.

I used to believe my pond is a closed system and I am about 30 feet above the black river so it never floods, but now I am going to question that. I will not take the chance on releasing these back into my pond, since the pond is spring fed.

Thanks for the replies.

That's good to hear. A 210 sounds good for them. How big is the bass right now? I'd be mostly concerned about him tearing things up as he got older.

That's good to hear. A 210 sounds good for them. How big is the bass right now? I'd be mostly concerned about him tearing things up as he got older.

The bass is 8" right now. I have another post with pic in the ID forum. I don't know if it is an LM or SM, I figured that since the large bass that I have caught out of my pond, 16" and 18" are definitely SM that this young one would be an SM as well. I have never put an LM in the pond so I don't know how it would have gotten there.