Dollar Sunfish and Darters

Will dollar sunfish eat large darters. When I say large I mean full grown Tennessee Snubnose. And yes Irate you can give me your input! Not that I will listen to it.

Well !! anyone know ??

Well !! anyone know ??

I've never kept dollars, but I'd guess that their mouths are too small to hold and swallow an adult Tennessee. It's all about the mouth.....

I have some Dollar Sunfish in a 125 with several small darters and they do not seem to notice them. The Dollars tend to hang out in the middle of the tank and the Darters are on the bottom naturally. I have even thrown YOY darters in and the Dollars seem to ignore them.

Bill F.

I have a Northern Longear, which is very similar to a Dollar Sunfish. I have it in a 125 gallon community tank. The Longear does not bother any darters at all. It is nearly a full grown male too. I did eat the Mosquitofish I had in there though, but who cares. They are not even aggressive towards other fish in there. But I don't keep any other sunfish in there with it. It is very aggressive towards it's own reflection in the glass, so another sunfish would be a disaster at this point.

Odd...My friend has a longear in with a jag, texas, and blue acara (all cichlids for those who are not fans of them) and that fish owns all of them any day! I was supposed to take his longear but I am afraid to even put it with my LMB. Maybe he got a freak. BTW don't longears get bigger than dollars?

Chad

I did eat the Mosquitofish...

You did? Was it tasty?

You did? Was it tasty?

delicious.

The Northern Longears are rather small max size of about 5.5" similar to the max size of a dollar sunfish (4.5 -5"). Also northern longears are a little less agressive than centrals or dollars. I think the dollar sunfish I have had are more aggressive than my northern longears. In any case they are all agressive towards other fish of the same species or other sunfish for that matter and likely chichlids too. I think it has something to do with them all being territorial fish. But if you have a large tank (like in Nate's case) and have a single longear (or probably this would work with a dollar too) that grew up in the tank and has lived with these smaller darters and minnows since he was small they don't seem to see the small fish as food. At times when you add a new fish (like his small mosquitofish) they may become lunch. I also don't think it would be wise to add another sunfish because the behavior of this single sunfish may change because it would then have something that may challenge it for a territory. I have done this myself before too, there is just something about letting a larger fish grow up with fish that it may one day be able to eat that it becomes familiar with them and does not consider them food. I would think that this may even work with a small group of sunfish if they were in a large tank (had plenty of room to each have a large territory) and the darters and or minnows were in with them from the time the sunfish were rather small.