White Bass

anyone ever keep one? any suggestions? I'm attempting it now and he seems very timid, especially in comparison to my white crappie, green sunfish and bluegill...

White bass very similar to rest in genus (striped bass, yellow bass and white perch). Normally schooling away from dense structure and will readily consume smaller fishes. Very active swimmer that takes more time to adapt to confines of an aquarium than sunfishes. They are not the most capable when it comes to manuevering through dense structure. Best when kept in groups of similar sized individuals in a larger more open tank. Tolerant of a similar (to sunfishes) range of water quality but responds more favorably to the addition of salt and is a little more demanding than green sunfish in tems of oxygen. Optimal temperature range middle to low seventies but will feed reasonably well until temperature reach middle eigthies. Readily trains to eat pelleted diets formulated for predatory species. If happy not all that prone to stunt so long as you keep water quality up. Big ones can panic resulting in damage when ramming solid structures. I have raised this and hybrids (sunshine and palmetto basses) with striped bass. Not as tough as hybrids but tougher than striped when in freshwater. Smaller white bass will put on parr marks (vertical bars) when expressing an attitude. Can be cannibalistic so limit size variation when small. Cannibles color up differently than more sociable types. Splash a lot when feeding!

anyone ever keep one? any suggestions? I'm attempting it now and he seems very timid, especially in comparison to my white crappie, green sunfish and bluegill...

white bass normally like to school in large lakes and rivers so i think a very large tank with several fish will make the bass a lot happier

Not all white bass live in large lakes and rivers, they can live in small lakes and small rivers.

"Several fish" will probably not make the bass happy as you doesn't say which species the fish are. White bass will be happy with its own species.

i meant several white bass