Green? sunfish compatibility

Hey, just curious about something.. I collected some fish this spring and caught a small sunfish (I believe it is a green) and decided to keep it for awhile until it grows larger in which I'll pass it on to a friend for a public display tank.. Anyway, now that I've quarantined it and acclimated it to aquarium life, I'm leary about where to place it.. He's about 3 inches or a little larger right now and by himself in a 10 gallon... I've always wanted to setup a native tank for something like this but havn't experimented until now.. I have two possible temporary tanks for him but don't really know his aggression level with other fish.. I have a 29 gallon with a pair of jewel cichlids and a pair of convicts but I suspect they'll be a little too aggressive to him being a new addition... the other possibility would be a 36 gallon bowfront with some barbs.. I have a couple albino tiger barbs, gold barbs, 3-4" spanner barbs and black ruby barbs.. I don't think I'd have a problem with the fish but my fear is that he'll eat my 3" chameleon shrimp...... Am I correct in these assumptions? Don't sunfish eat small crayfish in the wild? I havn't done any research on that yet.. I put some ghost shrimp in there with him as an experiment but I have enough fake plants in there I can't really tell if they're alive still...


I also have a juvie that started about an inch but is around 2" already but I'm not positive it's the same species yet as there is no color showing.. I have considered putting him in the barb tank to see how he does.. I was suprised how interactive the sunfish is.. I thought he'd be more prone to hide but he definitely knows when I'm feeding.. I can almost feed him worms by hand.... kyle

If it truely is a green then I would be careful where you place it. That species does get up to about 8" (ocasionally larger) and is one of the more aggressive species and has a larger mouth than most other Lepomis sp. I would say for the sunfishes sake the barb tank is better, the large barbs should be ok for now but I'm not sure I would say the same for the shrimp. It actually may be ok in with the chichlids ( I have some with a convict right now) if they were similar sized and you rearanged the tank to disturb the current territories set up by the chichlids. I'm not surprised at all that it knows when you are feeding it. All sunfish will learn to do this. They are very similar to keeping chichlids. They exhibit many of the same territorial behaviors and there are many different species within which there are different strains geographically. Take a look at the discussion on northern vs central longears on the taxonomic page. Also post some pics of both your sunfish here as a follow up. I'm sure if you can get a decent pic that I can give you a possitive ID on both of them. I currently have 13 species of sunfish they are by far most of what I keep. The convict is my wife's and she won't let me get rid of him.

It sounds like smbass wants to get rid of his convict You know that convict cichlids are from Central America and therefore qualify as native North American fishes.

I was surprised that you are worried about the green sunfish being a victim of aggression by the convict cichlid. I would have thought it to be the other way around. My convict is very peaceful, and is at the bottom of the pecking order of my cichlids. My chocolate cichlid is the king (yes, I know he's South American), with the firemouth the runner-up (he's from Central America, therefore a native). My concern would be, will the green sunfish eat the convict cichlid? The answer: if he can fit the convict into his mouth, then yes. Until the green sunfish grows significantly larger than the convict, I wouldn't worry. But be aware that they will have to be separated eventually. I don't think convicts get that big.

If that juvenile sunfish is 2 inches long, you should definitely know whether he is a green sunfish by now. He will be a little longer proportionally than most sunfish. He will have a white (supposedly yellow or orange are also possible, but I've only seen white) fringe around the dorsal, caudal, and anal fins, and on the leading edge of the pelvic fins. And he will have tiny black spots on him, like sombody sprinkled pepper on him. He will have a black spot on the base of the dorsal fin at the rear, and probably (not definitely) a corresponding black blotch at the rear base of the anal fin. I've got juveniles that are 3/4-inch and already clearly have the white fringe. They are very easily recognizable. No other sunfish has that white fringe. They also have larger mouths than most sunfish. That large mouth gives them kind of a mean look, which is kind of cool.

I've got a pair of green sunfish that are about 3 inches now. One is darker than the other, and has the black blotch on the anal fin. The other is lighter and does not have the dark blotch on the anal fin. They are very handsome fish. I just hope that 8-inch maximum estimate turns out to be accurate, because I don't really want them to get bigger than that. Only time will tell... They don't seem to be much more aggressive than other sunfish I have so far: pumpkinseeds, bluegills, and central longears. Most of their aggression seems to be directed toward each other. I really like them.

I currently have a single 6" green in a 75g, so far it hasen't been aggresive and without a doubt my convicts (who are in another tank) are much more territorial. Mine will eat smaller fish though, given the chance.
Personally, I would move the shrimp to the ten gallon and place it with the barbs. They should be alright if he cannot fit them in his mouth. I have kept many "community" fish with sunfish before and if they cannot eat them they typically won't bother them. I think putting the green in the cichlid tank is asking for trouble, to be honest I think the current situation within your cichlid tank is asking for trouble. Convicts and Jewels are both highly aggresive and grow between four and six inches....God forbid you get a breeding pair in that tank.

thanks for the replies guys, I'll see what I can do about pics but they are in very poor light conditions and don't exibit full colors.. that's one of the reasons I wanted to move them to a better display.... I understand once he is fully grown, things would be different but I wanted to try and get some experiences at his current size. He is smaller than the jewels and convicts and being the "new kid on the block" I figure he'd probably face a gauntlet...

I realize the jewels and convicts are not an "optimum" tank but they were of necessity.. I started the 29 with just the jewels for breeding and they are fullgrown.. I quickly found it difficult to get rid of hundreds of jewels so I had to put a stop to their breeding.. I started with a pleco and some "lace" catfish for fry control and they did a good job. The Jewels always hid so we wanted to try some sort of dither.. they killed everything I tried from "tough" goodeids to danio's so I decided something larger and stronger had to be used.. A friend was trying to get rid of tons of convicts (as usual) so we decided to try a couple.. well, he brought me 30 so of neccessity, we dumped them all in.. Most were around 2-3".. well, it worked.. the jewels were now out and about in a swarm of convicts but of course we were WAY overstocked... at first we got rid of about 20-25 at the shops and were down to 5-6 convicts but I still felt it was overstocked and the one female was being harassed constantly and the excess of males was only leading to shredded fins so we decided to try a pair and kept one male and the female.. There are 3 strawberry pots, several PVC tubes and some terra cotta pots in the tank... the jewels own all 3 strawberry pots and the convicts just stay out of the way but do pretty well together.. As long as it keeps my jewels out in the open, they are welcome in the tank..

Now back to the sunfish..... I really don't want to remove the shrimp from the barb tank because I love the interaction between the fish and shrimp right now.. It's fun to see a shrimp and a barb wrestle over an algae wafer during feeding.. I don't really have another tank I'd trust the shrimp in so they're going to stay there.. I may just have to go ahead and find a friend who can adopt them... I've got several fellow clubmembers with larger cichlid tanks they can probably fit into... I'm not so sure they are green's but not sure where they fall yet.... I'll try to do some more ID'ng and see what I can figure out... KYle

It sounds to me like you need another tank

Maybe the following pics of my male and female green I currently have will help you id the fish you have. I still would stick to what I said before as far as not putting it with the chichlids especialy after you gave more info on the chichlids being paired off and full grown. The male convict I have is about 5" and the green's are around 4 and there are a couple pairs of northern longears in there also which the males are the rulers of that tank. I just keep them all well fed and since there are quite a few fish in a relatively small tank (40 breeder) they are not able to set up territories. A young sunfish 2" of any species wouldn't stand a chance in that tank much as I suspect it wouldn't with your chichlids.

Very nice green sunfish pics, smbass. Maybe at the first alliance collecting trip you can give me some photography tips. The dark blotch on the dorsal fin is difficult to see, but it's there. Yours doesn't appear to have the dark blotch on the anal fin, and the white fringe is very thin. There is a lot of yellow in yours.

Here is the best picture I could come up with of my lighter colored one. The pumpkinseed actually turned out better, and he wasn't intended to be in the picture. This green sunfish doesn't have the anal fin blotch, either, but the dorsal fin blotch is very evident.

Here is the best pic I could get of my darker green sunfish. You can see that this one clearly has the anal fin blotch as well as the dorsal fin blotch. The white fringe is very pronounced. If the pictures were better, you would see the pepper spots on them, especially on the lighter one.