Lepomis Megalotis "Sulphur Springs"

Hi, I am new to the forum, so I will introduce myself with the sunfish I am breeding, or, rather, am letting breed and collecting. Longear Sunfish, Lepomis Megalotis, collected from the springs of Sulphur, Oklahoma.

Longear are fascinating fish, as they vary greatly in color by collection point. The parents are nothing special, even in breeding season, but I have found the males get very nice colors when collected as fry, and raised in aquariums.
I presume this is because they don't have to hide from predators, and instead spend all their time trying to impress each other.

I started with 7 presumably unrelated individuals, now about five, I assume from predation, though I had one casualty last winter.
Is this enough to keep the strain alive? what are your thoughts on the stability of sunfish strains, given that they travel during rainstorms?

Here is an example of my fish, a young male

awesome I love seeing differences in Longears.

If you were "arking" a lost wild population for future re-stocking in the wild, you'd probably want to keep a larger "founder" population, but since you're just growing these for aquarium and pond pets then I think your seven founders will be fine. Fish have a LOT of babies to counteract the risks of in-breeding, compared with birds and mammals.

Thanks! Yes these are just for tanks and ponds, I removed 70 from the pond last season, out of probably 100 or so. I may need to add some later, to keep them from inbreeding too much, but they are fine so far. I mainly use my tank and pond space for cichlids but these are a great bonus! And a beautiful fish that is very easy to breed and raise here, where they are natural.

Out of the 70 though, I placed the babies (@ about.5-.75 inch) in a tank with 3 larger parent sunfish (4-5 in) and a baby bullhead (2 in or less), and over the course of two days, about 30 of them disappeared (no bodies)... It is so many fish, I find it hard to believe it was the bullhead, so am I right to assume from this that they eat the babies? I am a cichlid breeder, and given how similar they are, I just assumed that they wouldn't.

When I saw Sulphur Springs in the subject line I assumed it meant the one in NE Texas but am pleasantly surprised to see it means "Sulphur springs" in OK. Some of the bluest longears I've seen came from the Tishomingo area. Best of luck breeding your longears.

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Brandon
Tahlequah, OK