[Rtifs]

I have a bluespotted sunfish (Enneacanthus gloriosus) in a 75 gal heavily planted tank. It is rather shy and hardly makes any appearances. It has also never turned black like all the internet pics show. Is black their normal day-to-day color or their spawning color?

Do these fish need to live in groups? Will getting a few more reduce its shyness?
Here's a recent pic.

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[Drew]

Adding a couple more won't hurt. Also, a dark substrate will bring out the darker colors you see in other pictures. And if you have a lot of light, which I'm guessing you do since it is a heavily planted tank, that may also deter them from coming out of hiding.

[mikez]

I gave up on 'em for that reason to tell the truth. I tried groups, dithers, heavy plants, bags of peat, less light, more light etc. Nothing worked for me. I only saw them at feeding time. The only time I saw the text book colors was when they were spawning and then only when well hidden. They'd stop spawning and go pale if they caught me looking. I tried moving them from the community tank to save fry and they never spawned again.
One thing I did notice from wild collected [NC] was larger adults don't settle into captivity very easy. They were the most shy, least seen and most likely to careen off the glass in panic. Smaller sub-adults seem to settle easier although never as well as E. obesus or even BBS.

[gerald]

Keeping gloriosus WITH chaetodon or obesus can sometimes make gloriosus less shy, like the other species. Keep gloriosus with same-size or larger chaetodon, or with same-size or smaller obesus, since obesus is often more aggressive and chaetodon less aggressive (than gloriosus).