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