My sunfish and Koi update

A while back I made a topic about keeping sunfish with koi and goldfish. Well I got VERY mixxed opinions and got them anyway. I just wanted to give an update.


They are orange spotted sunfish and I have one male and two females. Until very recently I had four goldfish, two fancy and two non fancy. Recently one of my non fancies has died from no aparent cause. No damage to the body and no symptoms. I think it was a genetic disorder that kicked in, or some other unpreventable cause because all other fish were/are fine and my water quality was too. As for koi, I have one male just under 10 inches.

Everybody is kept in an 80 gallon.

Well I know what you are thinking right now. Over crouded and koi do not belong in aquariums. Yes I know, I run into that alot. My koi is only 10 inches and my goldfish are under five inches including tail. I change the water every week, or at least check the nitrate lever and when my fish grow out of the tank I will sell or have a pond by them. Then I will get tons of natives.

I put paper on three sides of my aquarium to amke my sunfish more secure for when I got them.

Well I had very mixed reviews of keeping sunfish in my tank, but I did so anyway. I thought I should put the results here for furture refrence for everybody.




All of thefish get along fine. Its been about four months now, more or less and the sunfish co-exist perfectly with my koi and goldfish. I have four hides, three until recently and at first the sunfish were scared to death. Really they had just been shipped in a bag overnight. At first they hid for their lives. Koi didn't even notice them and he would swim right by them and they would swim as fast as they could to get out of his way because they thought he was a predator. My koi also sucks up the gravle and spitts is out again to look for food after every feeding and when he did that near where one of the sunfish were hiding they would slowly swim backwards hoping he wouldn't see them.

About a day later they were still hiding as much and didn't notice when I fed them. They were way less afraid of my koi after one night.

Two weeks later the sunfish were ajusted to feeding time of koi food and freeze dried sunfish food (bloodworms etc.) They came partially out and ate once the food sank. The male was the most outgoing. I took one peice of paper off eaither side of my aquarium (one 8 1/2x11 sheet). The fish hid again after fealing exposed, but aguested after a day or so.

So the routine went on. Slowly my sunfish have become more outgoing and i took off a sheet of paper about every week until they didn't even care when a sheet was gone and then I took one off every day.

The sunfish have NOT shown any agression, although some people have feared that they would. The sunfish keep in their own business and the koi and goldfish in their own school. Until feeding time when it is everybodies business.

I recently got a new pot for a hide and now my sunfish are out more than ever.

By nature the sunfish, compared to the koi and goldfish hide alot but they come out andinvestagate new things in the tank (usally a gravle vacume, an algae cleaner sponge or my hand). The sunfish live happily and healthily.


So for all of you who thought it wouldn't work. It did.




Yes, I know I can't spell.

I'm glad everything has worked out well.

I must say it's difficult to use the word "sunfish" and apply behavioral attributes to them across the board. Each genus will share behavioral characteristics to an extent but then you could further divide by species to describe their behavior in the home aquaria. Even then, regional differences seem to exist (look at the aggression differences reported from populations of longears).

You have orangespotted sunfish (OSS) with carp. OSS IMO are a very peaceful lepomis. OSS that I've kept typically only show aggression at feeding time and occasionally to other OSS. I've never seen any OSS in my tanks actually injure another fish and I keep them with gambusia and killifish.

I wouldn't expect you to to have any trouble with OSS and other tankmates under normal conditions.

Well its all the better they are agressive towards food, that way they can compeate with the koi and goldfish.

And I know koi and goldfish are carp, but if you are going to be particualr that my sunfish are OSS then I would be particular that my carp are koi and goldfish. IMO its kinda like calling a dog a wolf. Koi are much more active, peaceful and hungry then carp. Goldfish have been so domestacated they hardly look like carp. I just think a carp would have acted very diffrently towards OSS.