20 replies to this topic

[Michael Wolfe]

I had the chance to get a couple of free longears from a local guy that was frustrated with having to keep them in separate tanks.  I took them off his hands mostly just to get him into shiners and other local natives.  But I also decided that it would be an opportunity for me to experiment with adding a sunfish into a community tank. 

 

I have 4 bluehead chubs and 12 yellowfin shiners in my 75 gallon tank. Sunday, I added a 6 inch longear to that mix.  So far, he seems distracted by all the commotion of the other 16 fish and is not eating yet (plus his transfer and spending a night in a bucket, I am not surprised). The shiners are all schooled up and facing him where ever he is, even if it means that have to put their back to the current.  I have seen him charge one of the chubs that approached him too close, but nothing serious yet.

 

This is just day one of the experiment, so far so good.  Here area a couple of pictures.

 

Bluehead Chub and blurry Yellowfin Shiners (I dont know how any of you get still photos inside an aquarium).

 aquarium bluehead.jpg   96.21KB   3 downloads

 

And here is the new guy (he's a 3 yr old zimmermans longear)

 aquarium longear.jpg   112.98KB   3 downloads

 

Here he is in the photo tank (which he really did not like, hence the clamped caudal)

 large.jpg   80.27KB   4 downloads

 

[Isaac Szabo]

He's a beautiful fish. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

[cjohns]

I never had a problem with my longears eating community fish of that size but my warmouth is a different story!

[smbass]

Yeah this would not go well with a warmouth... But with a longear I think your doing it right. The other fish are established and know the tank better than the sunfish, this helps. The other way to get it to work well is to start with a very young sunfish and allow it to grow up in a community of other fish. Once he starts feeding keep him well fed and make it easy for him to get food and he will be less likely to try to snack on any yellowfins because it would be too much effort.

[Bulldarter]

That is a gorgeous longear! I hope he keeps behaving well.

[Michael Wolfe]

One week in: So far he has not eaten a shiner. Also this weekend he ate zoomed 'can-o-shrimp'.  I think he is settling in... the commotion of all the shiners and chubs had him spooked.

[littlen]

(I had to take a second and think about what a "zoom-ed" can-o-shrimp was. I eventually figured it out. Thank you for the early morning brain workout!)

[Michael Wolfe]

3 weeks in: I have lost a few shiners, and I think it is the sunfish (the only other fish in tank are bluehead chubs).  Also this morning, the smallest of the blueheads (who had noticed getting a little thinner and beat up looking) was found dead in tank. Now all these fish are three and a half years old, but still, I think it is stress from the longear charging in to space and scaring the others.  He seems to be hitting flake or the sinking pellets I am feeding the blueheads and is certainly eating freeze dried shrimps from the surface.

 

I'm going to keep the experiment going (in part case I dont want to have to get in there and chase them all around just yet) but I think we need bigger fish than yellowfins to be "truely safe".

[smbass]

Cyprinella Shiners, surprised at the chub death.

[gerald]

"Otis" who some of you met at the 2007 NC convention lived in a 40 gal with Cyprinella chloristia and nivea.  He and the biggest chloristia did battle often (the longear usually gave up before the shiner did) and I think having the longear present may have reduced the aggression damage among the Cyprinellas.

[Michael Wolfe]

OK, after 5 weeks I am officially declaring this a bad idea.  Maybe it is the individual sunfish (he seems mean to me... I have seen him challenge and chase chubs... mostly just charging at them, but still) or his upbringing (he was a survivor of a sunfish only tank and then lived by himself for a while).  Or maybe yellowfins are just too small, but there are only three left of the original 12 (and I never saw a body).  Heck we could maybe even blame my husbandry or feeding style.

 

But I am going to have to add larger minnows (I have a single creek chub that used to live with catfish, he's tough) maybe some Cyprinella.  Or maybe a catfish and just go without small shiners for a while in the display tank.

[Betta132]

I've heard that most tanks with a relatively large fish and a bunch of small fish work best if you introduce the large fish to the tank as a baby. That might be worth a try at some point. 

Cyprinella shiners are pretty durable. I had a few little ones go missing when in a tank with a hand-sized longear, but the ones at about 3" did just fine. 

[Duckman77]

I have not kept a central longear, but I currently have a 55 gallon with about 15 SRBD and an adult lone male northern longear sunfish.  I also have a 33 long with an adult northern longear, blackside darters, rainbow darters, blackstripe topminnows, etc.  Neither tank has any aggression or predation on the part of the northern longears.

 

The northern longear might be worth a try if you wanted to mix a sunfish in with your community fish.

[steve]

Nice looking Longear Michael.  I've had pretty good luck with this type of community tank.  The smallest I've kept with a longear though is some small SRBD.  I've usually found that it gets better as time goes on and they realize that it's easier to wait for me to feed them.  You brought up an interesting point about the fellow coming from a sunfish only tank.  All of mine have been wild caught.  I've had best luck keeping the longear by himself for 2-3 months before introducing him to the crowd.  I think this gives him time to rethink about where the food comes from.  Good luck.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this works out.

[Josh Blaylock]

I was thinking about trying this, perhaps not now.

[smbass]

I wouldn't let this experience stop you Josh. I think the fact that this particular longear had previously been in a tank with nothing but competition with other sunfish and it was already a large adult both worked against Michael. I still think maybe as this fish becomes more accustomed to being fed it will stop taking out its tank mates as much (maybe). May just be an old adult accustomed to its ways. I have usually used Northern Longear, or Dollar sunfish when I have done this too which are smaller and looks like others have had similar success with northerns as well.

[Josh Blaylock]

Perhaps if I try a small Longear, it will acclimate better in the long run. I may still try it, depending on if I find one this year.

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[Sho Bud]

I have a single Longear with 9 bluntnose minnows, 2 green side darters, a striped shiner and a stonecat in a 65g. The Longear was placed in the tank after the rest of the fish when 2.5" inches long. The Longear is now over 6" and chases all of them, especially the benthic fish and particularly after feeding and 30 minutes after dark. He is pretty chill the rest of the time. I have lots of structure to counter this. No deaths, yet.

[Sho Bud]

I might also add that none of the other fish feel the need to hide from the Longear. It's a neat tank.

[Sho Bud]

So.... Now that the water has warmed up a little, my Longear sunfish has killed 6 bluntnose minnows and is a raging hormonal teenager. Luckily the greenside darters and stonecat are okay. The Longear has been removed from the 65 and now lives in my step-dad's pond.