Suggested natives for a 125g tank?

I'm not sure if this is possible, but can NJ natives be mixed with tropical fish? My tank is around 72-76F, and I know the outside lake temperatures often soar higher then that. However, would being kept in year round tropical temps be detrimental to the natives' health?

Larger fish would be preferred, max sizes ranging from 6"-just under 2' would be great. Right now, it's stocked with 2 7" severums, a silver arowana (stunted growth from being in a tiny tank for 3 years, 18" Stupid owner...) and a shovelnose cat (18").
The cat may eventually be moved out into another tank. Oh, and if the fish to be moved in are smaller, I do have other tanks set up, haha.

Natives located somewhere on the East Coast or really, any other suitable, easily found fish would be great, haha.
How suitable are sunfishes and crappies? What sort of food do they eat?

I'm not sure if this is possible, but can NJ natives be mixed with tropical fish? My tank is around 72-76F, and I know the outside lake temperatures often soar higher then that. However, would being kept in year round tropical temps be detrimental to the natives' health?

Larger fish would be preferred, max sizes ranging from 6"-just under 2' would be great. Right now, it's stocked with 2 7" severums, a silver arowana (stunted growth from being in a tiny tank for 3 years, 18" Stupid owner...) and a shovelnose cat (18").
The cat may eventually be moved out into another tank. Oh, and if the fish to be moved in are smaller, I do have other tanks set up, haha.

Natives located somewhere on the East Coast or really, any other suitable, easily found fish would be great, haha.
How suitable are sunfishes and crappies? What sort of food do they eat?

Tiger muskies and alligator gar are the ticket for you ! White sturgeon would be a good 2nd choice !

Seriously though, sunnies would be OK. Maybe a bowfin?

If you want an NJ native, try redbreast sunfish. They're easy to care for, and get pretty large for a sunfish(10" IME). They also breed readily if you want to try it.

Two other natives that are found in NJ, but introduced there are warmouth and longear sunfish. Both are beautiful fish, especially male longears. If you buy your longears, get centrals, because they get up to 8" I think. Northerns are another subspecies, but only get 5 1/2". Warmouth get 8-10", and males can be attractive. They're hardly aggressive at all. However, longears can be pretty aggressive from what I hear from other keepers. Mine are still young, so I haven't seen much aggression. You could try pseeds as well, but I don't know much about them, so you might have to ask around a little bit if you wanted those.

Sunfish will eat any live food that can fit in their mouth pretty much. They can also eat pellets or flake food. From what I've been told, pellets are better because flake food isn't enough to fill them up. Cichlid pellets would probably be fine.

How big is your tank? Just curious because you have some pretty large fish in there.

Thanks for all the suggestions. =)

It's a 125 (72" x 18" x 24") gallon tank, which is a bit small for the future size of the catfish I know. It's got a huge sump and a canister filter though, the tank's really overfiltered, so the fish are happy, haha.

Bowfins sound interesting, I'll definitely look into them some more. Are they top, mid, or bottom water fish?

And as for the sunnies, I adore them and see them all the time, so that shouldn't be too difficult. Could you direct me to a site that explains how to differentiate between the species and whatnot? The biology & captive care section doesn't seem to include sunfish at all, unless I'm going blind.