quick question

can sunfish like Bluegill, Warmouth or Rockbass in Size from .5" to 10" eat Brine Shrimp? I was thinking of keeping colonies of them to feed my natives and shelldwellers along with flake and other live food. They seemed the cheapest and cleanest/easiest to care for. Im also going to keep crickets for feeding my natives once their larger like 8".

yes they can eat brine shrimp. sunfish REALLY aren't picky when it comes to live food.

and don't wait till they're 8" to feed them crickets. mine were eating crickets when they were 2.5".

ok thanks. So a 10" sunfish can eat a small Brine Shrimp? I guess i'll get ready to rear up some crickets! And maybe Brine Shrimp but the hassle for reward doesnt seem rewarding. I think crickets and minnows would feed more for less work and $$

White worms and/or grindal worms are easier to culture than brine shrimp, IMHO.

ok thanks. So a 10" sunfish can eat a small Brine Shrimp? I guess i'll get ready to rear up some crickets! And maybe Brine Shrimp but the hassle for reward doesnt seem rewarding. I think crickets and minnows would feed more for less work and $$

a 10" sunfish would definitley eat brine shrimp, but they're so tiny they wouldn't do much to fill up the sunfish. you're right, crickets and minnows would feed more for less. they're much more filling.

ok, now i realized my "bluegill" turned out to be black crappie. I can tell by my larger 4"er has black squiggles like a crappie slowly fading in. also their body shape and width/height is too far off from a bluegill and more of a crappie. and to top it off, their mouth's are pointy and not stubbed like a bluegill's. So i planned this tank/feeding/ect.... for bluegill and i hope that it can sustain a crappie. Start off with the tank.
10g planted with rocks and openings i think should be fine
temp is upper 60's like 68F on the dot right now, temp should lower with AC starting up soon
upgrading tank to a 54G tub thats 45"L 22"W and 19"H so it should hold them off till i get a larger tank

Food: im feeding high protein flakes/brine shrimp. Like 40% and 46% in each so i think crappie like protein??

their eating like monsters and kept them in it for about 1- 1 1/2 weeks now and they have grown slightly. trying to get em eating pellet food and worms/insects

Brine shrimp and flakes will not sustain crappie that large. You will need to feed larger and high protein foods like frozen krill, mysis shrimp, silversides or live foods like minnows, guppies, mosquitofish, etc. I suggest moving your fish to the larger tank as soon as you can since from what I can sort of but not really understand they are quite large.

I agree it sure sounds like you need an upgrade in tank size real soon. If one crappie is 4 inches and you have other sunfish as well eating like monsters then they are also doing something else like monsters. Plus if they are getting flakefood and frozen brine there's likely a lot just settling to the bottom as sunnies arn't the most efficient flake feeders around. One and a half weeks already. You could be headed for water problems real soon.

Brine shrimp and flakes will not sustain crappie that large. You will need to feed larger and high protein foods like frozen krill, mysis shrimp, silversides or live foods like minnows, guppies, mosquitofish, etc. I suggest moving your fish to the larger tank as soon as you can since from what I can sort of but not really understand they are quite large.

An interesting observation I have to contrary is that several sunfishes can effectively filter effectively enough to grow on freshly hatched brine shrimp and grow. A year of so ago I had a 75 gallon aqarium with bluegill, green sunfish, black crappie, redear, red spotted sunfish and redbreast sunfish. Four times daily excess brine shrimp was poured into the tank. All fish quickly learned to anticipate this and would begin filter feeding by sucking up concentrations of nauplii. All but the last three could consume enough to get distended bellies. Growth was slow but evident over a three month period. The most imporant difference between the brine shrimp and the larger alternatives is particle size since brine shrimp, especially the young one are protein dense and loaded with fat.

The fish in the tank were all in the 5 to 8 inch range. I do not say this is a practical method for feeding such fishes but we were throwing away nearly 25 grams of brine shrimp daily.

An interesting observation I have to contrary is that several sunfishes can effectively filter effectively enough to grow on freshly hatched brine shrimp and grow. A year of so ago I had a 75 gallon aqarium with bluegill, green sunfish, black crappie, redear, red spotted sunfish and redbreast sunfish. Four times daily excess brine shrimp was poured into the tank. All fish quickly learned to anticipate this and would begin filter feeding by sucking up concentrations of nauplii. All but the last three could consume enough to get distended bellies.

Hmmm,
Maybe I wasn't as crazy as I thought this past winter; I caught several crappies ice-fishing, and while cleaning them decided to examine their stomach contents. I had 9 crappies, one had a minnow and some chironomids and the rest appeared to be full of daphnia. I couldn't believe they would be eating something that small though, so all but dismissed the idea and decided that it must just be the digested remains of something bigger. They sure looked like daphnia though. I even considered bringing a sample to work the next day to examine under a microscope, but figured that might be frowned upon. I work in the QC dept of a pharmaceutical company. I'm pretty sure bringing in fish stomach contents would violate some kind of policy.

Larger food would probably be more practical though. If they are already trained on flake food, I would keep trying with the pellets. You may want to soak the pellets to soften them a bit before feeding, if they are acting finicky toward pellets it may be that they are used to softer food.

they also have guppies and small snails in the tank. will buy more protein rich food soon. iu am also currently trying to get them eating trout worms, crickets and wax worms. their a little too small i guess b/c they check it out and their movement scares them or something? also will upgrade in the near future to a 55g or maybe straight to a 100g

my 3" sunfish really like live mealworms, you can get a can of 50 at petco for around 2 dollars.

odd as it seems, they seem to like ZooMed's "Can 'O Bluebird Worms" which are moist, preserved mealworms (dead) in a sealed can, more than live mealworms.

i went to petco a while ago and saw the bluebird worms in the clearance section at 4 dollars and some change, came back a few weeks later,and they were on sale for $1 a can, i bought several cans.