9 replies to this topic

[gatorguy]

Hi everybody, i just got a 55 and built a stand for it, but in deciding extactly what to do with it ive hit a bump. Theres about a hundred different things i want to do with it and i cant decide.

I initially bought it wanting to keep a pair or trio of white crappie. Would they be okay with live plants?

I also thought of heating it up a little and keeping them with some severums or another similarly sized south/central american cichlid. Thoughts?

My third thought was to go planted community and get some smaller species of panfish. Do you think a small species of sunfish could do well in a heavily planted community with rainbowfish, gouramis, and fish of that sort?

I am definitely leaning towards the third, but i want yalls opinions. Sorry for all the questions, but i want to have a tank i can enjoy for a long time and i want to be sure.

[fishlvr]

Crappie are to large and jumpy IMO. I've kept one that was 4" long and very skittish. It constantly slammed into the walls of my 55. I'd go with a group of smaller Lepomis or Enneacanthus. I've only kept Lepomis with tropical cichlids (convicts, red devils). Both attempts resulted in a lot of aggression from males of both. However, these were redbreasted sunfish, which are more agressive than other Lepomis in my experience. It may work with the above mentioned fish. Hopefully someone with more native/tropical mixing experience will chime in.

[loopsnj64]

keep the blackbanded sunfish (or other members of its genus) if you wish to keep a sunfish with any tropicals, and even then said tropicals would need to tolerate room temperature, keep blackbanded sunfish in a heavily planted, acidic-water tank

[gatorguy]

Would they do well in a group of say 3-5? The temperature needs are workable and the size is right. Only problem is theyre so derned expensive. Know any other places i can get them besides aquaculturestore.com ?

[fishlvr]

3-5 should be fine depending on how many other fish are in the tank. Not may people work with E. chaetodon, hence the price. Check around for the other Enneacanthus as well, or possibly even bantam or orangespotted sunfish. You have a lot of options for small sunfish. Dollar and Norther Longears get a little bigger than the other mentioned sunfish, but a group of 3 or 4 would be no issue in a 55g. Brian Zimmerman works a lot with sunfish in general. Check out his site.

[gatorguy]

Bluespotteds are beautiful...if i bought say 4 and kept them in a nicely planted tank and fed varied foods, how good are my odds of getting that dark color like this?
I have kept bluegill before and they never colored up like when they were caught, but then i was much younger and in hindsight had no idea what i was doing at the time.

Attached Files

•  bluespot.jpg   407.73KB   1 downloads

[fishlvr]

Feed lots of bloodworms. That's how I get color out of all of my fish. Bluespotteds, longears, warmouth, bantams, etc. Supplement with other natural foods (earthworms are another biggy, especially for conditioning for breeding). Keep in mind females will be much more dull.

[gatorguy]

Yes i feed bloodworms, tubifex, and color flakes to my tropicals, so i guess im good there.

I fish a lot so i always have worms on hand too.

Thanks guys! Ill have to post pictures when its all up and running!

[Sean Phillips]

I'd go with an Enneacanthus community. I mix some natives and tropicals (ie bullhead with tropical cats and mudminnows with angelfish) and it always works out well as long as temp ranges are the same, I can't say what Lepomis and cichlids might do together though.

[gatorguy]

Im trying to blend north american native and exotic species as smoothly as possible. i have some beautiful pecan wood that im treating right now to use as driftwood in the tank, to go along with exotic and NA native plants. I want to do some classic tropicals like angels, rainbows or something like that in with the eneacanthus, so i guess we will see what happens.
Thanks for all the advice folks, ill let you know how it goes.