Dollar x Longear ?

I tried doing it the old fashioned way, male western dollar building nests with a ripe female longear - I forget which "type" - put together in an aquarium. They had no interest in each other.

On a side note with the warmouth. Warmouth crossed with greens, not sure which parent was which sex, wild caught. They spawned readily, but their spawns turned out fish in a wide variety of "configurations". Some looked like the parents, but some looked more like greens but with huge blue spots and lots of reddish orange especially in the fins. The end of that line was most of those fish failed at three to four inches I was unable to get a pair to successfully spawn. I had a green leaning male with a looks like the parents female, if I remember right the male killed the female after some attempts. The male died shortly there after from an internal infection.

Update, first brood used for much of this thread failed / kicked bucket / responded poorly to lack of love. Failure due to quality of culture regimen rather than genetics. Too many cysts from brine shrimp hatching jar were introduced with nauplii and water quality in the static aquarium did not work well with stocking density and custodial efforts. The brood was not priority from start as the longear used to nake cross are not sympatric as intended with the western dollar so the cross will be repeated with longear that are.

The longear female from the St. Francis River drainage of MIssouri is the intened to be crossed with western dollar of the same. The problem is the nympho longear has twice defeated, in less than a week (since the failure of the first hybrid brood), my dividers to mate with her brother. Provides food for pirate perch but ticks me off when all that feeding is wasted. That longear female has exhibited just about the shortest refactory period of any sunfish I have ever seen. Next go around I will not waste so much memory until brood reared to juvenile stage which will be about 2 weeks longer than last run.

As for choupique's efforts with making hybrids using single matings without stripping of gametes, we have seen same most of time but occasionally we have seen some slippage with females laying in nest of wrong species under decidely unnatural conditions. What I want to do is make a mixed colony of western dollar and a sympatric form of longear and place them into our sunfish teaser tank (13' x 6 ' x 2') and film the courtship of the males. From what we have seen of our males in isolation, we should have very little trouble discerning the western dollar and the longear males based on the courtship dance. Will try this after major bluegill work completed in February.


My hybrids between green sunfish and warmouth presented no such deformity issues and they readily get to nearly 10" in a pond setting with good survival. I also saw no recruitment by hybrids in 1/10 acre ponds over two years.

Edited by centrarchid, 10 January 2009 - 08:01 AM.

Our attempts where finally successful, Longear and Longear X dollar sunfish hybrids spawned 9/12/2009. Broods are half siblings.

Longear sunfish 59.3mm TL
 Pure LE.JPG   35.03KB   2 downloads
Longear X Dollar sunfish 60.7mm TL
 LE X WD.JPG   32.27KB   2 downloads

Something about the above imageS may be real. The hybrid, when handled / stressed, is much more inclined to hold fins erect. Also the spines and rays of dorsal, anal and pelvic fins are longer on the hybrid.

Something about the above imageS may be real. The hybrid, when handled / stressed, is much more inclined to hold fins erect. Also the spines and rays of dorsal, anal and pelvic fins are longer on the hybrid.

Will be looking forward to video of the male courtship displays. This would be great stuff to use in a lecture on speciation and reproductive isolating mechanisms.

Will be looking forward to video of the male courtship displays. This would be great stuff to use in a lecture on speciation and reproductive isolating mechanisms.

Over this Christmas break, we will be reconfiguring our 1500-gal teaser tank so that 1/3 of bottom on one end will be covered with 4" layer of sand. Three males each of west dollar and longear collected from a locality supporting both species will be allowed to construct nest where they want over the sand. Then we will add ripe females and observe the song and dance routines. If goes the same as in a 40-gal aquarium, then females will go only to males of the same species.

The F1 Longear x dollar hybrids are now averaging around 80mm with some pushing over 90mm. I was able to express gametes from both sexes the sex ratio seems to be 50/50, anytime now we will test them for fertility.

 Longear x dollar f1 male.JPG   16.96KB   3 downloads
Male Longear x Dollar
 Longear x dollar f1 female.JPG   16.55KB   1 downloads
Female Longear x Dollar

Damn those are beautifull fish.....sure beats those walmart cichlids !

I tried doing it the old fashioned way, male western dollar building nests with a ripe female longear - I forget which "type" - put together in an aquarium. They had no interest in each other.

On a side note with the warmouth. Warmouth crossed with greens, not sure which parent was which sex, wild caught. They spawned readily, but their spawns turned out fish in a wide variety of "configurations". Some looked like the parents, but some looked more like greens but with huge blue spots and lots of reddish orange especially in the fins. The end of that line was most of those fish failed at three to four inches I was unable to get a pair to successfully spawn. I had a green leaning male with a looks like the parents female, if I remember right the male killed the female after some attempts. The male died shortly there after from an internal infection.

choupique,

I am beginning to think your observation will hold up under a broad range of conditions. The hybrids (longear x western dollar) above were made by hand (basssmaster's) and repeated efforts to voluntary hybridization have failed in our system where multiple male and multiple females were present. The behavioral barrier to hybridization appears strong. Cuckoldry could still play a role. Our system was not conducive to cuckoldry; too many large males and only dollars in breeding mode.

Damn those are beautifull fish.....sure beats those walmart cichlids !

The fish can look better than they do in the images, but the pure parentals are in my opinion prettier. When I look at these guys (hybrids) in a tank, I can not tell who they are based on appearance.

Have you observed a higher tolerance to temperature and turbidity, and a greater willingness to eat a more varied diet (longear are so picky) in the hybrids than regular longear; I wonder what their colors will look like in breeding mode when theyre larger? Thanks Joe.

Joe, we can no longer extrapolate our longear population's tolerances to those of wild caught longear. First, our stock is now several generations tank reared (not been outside in over four years / generations). Second, even though we did not set out to explore this, we have found longear from different sources / subspecies are very different from each other in respect to the adaptability to our culture methods. Our research strain might eat cornflakes at swimmup (maybe a little exageration).

Are your captive raised longear picky about eating bloodworms, earthworms cichlid sticks etc? Are the captive raised Dollars less picky about eating said foods; and how big of a difference in several generations are your captive raised longear from wild caught ones? Does the same apply for water parameters? Sorry all my fish were dipnetted and I have never even spawned any sunfish yet (although I would like to). All info. is appreciated, Thanks Joe.

Are your captive raised longear picky about eating bloodworms, earthworms cichlid sticks etc? Are the captive raised Dollars less picky about eating said foods; and how big of a difference in several generations are your captive raised longear from wild caught ones? Does the same apply for water parameters? I dont know what kind of longear I am referring to....the only ones I can use as a reference are the longear in some of the local streams here in the Ozarks. Sorry all my fish were dipnetted and I have never even spawned any sunfish yet (although I would like to). All info. is appreciated, Thanks Joe. Sorry I thought I hit "edit", I guess I hit "reply" instead!

Edited by wargreen, 16 February 2010 - 02:20 PM.

Are your captive raised longear picky about eating bloodworms, earthworms cichlid sticks etc? Are the captive raised Dollars less picky about eating said foods; and how big of a difference in several generations are your captive raised longear from wild caught ones? Does the same apply for water parameters? Sorry all my fish were dipnetted and I have never even spawned any sunfish yet (although I would like to). All info. is appreciated, Thanks Joe.

Our captive raised fish will consume just about anything. They are typically slow about eating new foods. Differences are mainly behavioral. Differences are mostly due to taming rather than domestication although I am sure hatchery selection is already causing some of latter. I have know way of determining if water quality adaptins are taking place.

Spawning will be easy if you put some effort into it. A high school we are working with near you, in Joplin, has taken up breeding of sunfishes and done quite well.

Im sure your correct, but my experiences are very limited, I had a pair of Green Sunfish that I wanted to breed......until the male killed the female; and I dont even want to talk about the suffering I put some poor natives through when I was 12 yrs old trying to keep them in a 20 gallon aquarium! The truth is I do want to end up breeding sunfish, but I believe to properly breed Green and Redbreasts I would need a couple of 125 gallon tanks and a breeding tank.

Im sure your correct, but my experiences are very limited, I had a pair of Green Sunfish that I wanted to breed......until the male killed the female; and I dont even want to talk about the suffering I put some poor natives through when I was 12 yrs old trying to keep them in a 20 gallon aquarium! The truth is I do want to end up breeding sunfish, but I believe to properly breed Green and Redbreasts I would need a couple of 125 gallon tanks and a breeding tank.

With green sunfish, a lot less in terms of tank size is needed. I have bred them in 20 gallon high aquariums just fine. Redbreast I am not so sure about and have found them to be more difficult to breed than other Lepomis spp. If hybrids are still the interest, all you need for the male redbreast is a place to hold him. Fry, hybrid or otherwise, can be reared in a 10-gal aquarium if you can get the feeding and water quality maintenance regimes down.

Thanks again for the info.; Ive been looking and have found a picture of Redbreast hybrids on the internet and will try once I can get the time, and free up the space. The tanks I have now (a 38/39 gallon and a 20 gallon), would be good breeders, but I would still like more space for the actuall show tanks to keep the pure bread strains (I havent successfully bread a single sunfish yet ), the Green sunfish I caught at Stockton lake were too big to live together peacefully in either tank (plus I now know part of the reason was I didnt have any dithers).

Thanks again for the info.; Ive been looking and have found a picture of Redbreast hybrids on the internet and will try once I can get the time, and free up the space. The tanks I have now (a 38/39 gallon and a 20 gallon), would be good breeders, but I would still like more space for the actuall show tanks to keep the pure bread strains (I havent successfully bread a single sunfish yet ), the Green sunfish I caught at Stockton lake were too big to live together peacefully in either tank (plus I now know part of the reason was I didnt have any dithers).

I recommend a practice run using the longear sunfish you have in your area. You local longears produce realatively large eggs making for easy rearing. Have any experience with hatching brine shrimp? The feeding of young likely to be your biggest challenge.

Thats a good idea. Yeah Ive raised "Sea Monkeys" before,lol, though its been years. I will have to wait to dipnet and grow out some of the locals in my 39 gallon tank; the funny thing is that the longear I have seen down here do not look like the big Central Missouri longear Ive seen in pics on posts. The ones Ive seen are very light in color and dont seem to have the big hump yours and Zimmermans have in the pictures; I wonder if its a seperate subspecies of longear? My family and I have gone down to the fish hatchery near Branson in the past and seen in their tanks beautifull longear like yours, that are so aggressive they bully the bigger bluegill in the same 55 gallon around, I asked a volunteer where they came from, and he said didnt know; is that one of your stock, or are some "Central Mo. longear" also located down here in the Ozarks? Thanks Joe.

Edited by wargreen, 21 February 2010 - 11:45 PM.