White Bass Feeding

This Sunday I brought back a small white bass that I found in our bait bucket full of emerald shiners. The bass is currently 2.5" long (don't worry about legality, PA has no minimum size for white bass) and shares a divided 10 gallon with a 1" YOY Bluegill and a 2.5" white sucker (all three going in a 30 long with my green sunfish after quarantine). The bass has never physically harmed either other fish but it will take false aggressive charges at them and intimidate them. Because of this I divided the tank with eggcrate so the white bass has about an 8"x10"x12" area to itself until it grows a little bit more. When I brought it home it came along with 12 bait store emeralds which all died within 18 hours, however the bass is doing pretty well behavior and disease wise. Unfortunately he hasn't eaten anything yet. I've tried frozen bloodworms, daphnia, and mysis without luck. I've tried live blackworms without luck. And last night I threw in a .5" gambusia fry as a feeder but the bluegill very excitedly swam through the eggcrate to eat it after the bass ignored it for several minutes. I'm not sure what else to try, should I just dump in half a dozen gambusia fry and hope he eats them eventually or is there something else I can try? Any help would be appreciated, thank you!

 

just dump in half a dozen gambusia fry and hope he eats them

 

Sounds like you have the right idea. Let him get settled in a bit. I'd bet that after he sees that gill chomp a few more fish, he'll catch on.

Good news, got him to eat finally. Threw in five Gambusia fry and although the bluegill happily ate three, the bass finally picked up on the fact that they're edible and pounded one of them. And the last one I can't find so I assume one of them ate it . Other good news, when I was feeding the bluegill and sucker Frozen mysis the bass ate several pieces so hopefully he'll be eating consistently now.

Keep him  (and the other fish) FAR away from that green sunfish, i have heard of there nasty and invasive behavior,

 

i am curious about finding natives in bait stores, pet stores, etc. the only "bait store" natives i had were a group of heavily diseased shiners which i used to cycle a 30 gallon, they, unsurprisingly, did not last long.

 

also, for the bigger "cold water" deep lake fishes , what could be kept in a 40 gallon breeder (if anything), I'm also considering making that a riffle tank instead.

I reckon the white bass will be fine with green sunfish. From my observations, the green sunfish tends to be aggressive towards to other sunfish/cichlids but almost never other species.

I reckon the white bass will be fine with green sunfish. From my observations, the green sunfish tends to be aggressive towards to other sunfish/cichlids but almost never other species.

Yeah I'm not too worried about aggression. The bass slipped through the divided this morning and was lip-locking with the gill so I think it can hold its own against my greenie. Thankfully I got the bass back on its side before anyone was killed. Although what I did notice was that the bass was very defensive of the sucker every time the gill would swim by it. Maybe it's trying to defend its source of free stirred up food .

Keep him  (and the other fish) FAR away from that green sunfish, i have heard of there nasty and invasive behavior,
 
i am curious about finding natives in bait stores, pet stores, etc. the only "bait store" natives i had were a group of heavily diseased shiners which i used to cycle a 30 gallon, they, unsurprisingly, did not last long.
 
also, for the bigger "cold water" deep lake fishes , what could be kept in a 40 gallon breeder (if anything), I'm also considering making that a riffle tank instead.

It's rare to see fish like this in bait tanks but this bait store is in Erie and they go out far offshore and throw a castnet for pelagic emerald shiners and I often find perch in the bucket with them, although the bass is a rare find and only the second time I've found one with my bait.

That's really what I'm trying to shift towards right now as I find silvery, midwater, cool water, pelagic fish that are often thought of (and most of the time really are) sensitive to aquarium life very interesting specimens to keep. 40 breeder could work for some emerald or spot tail shiners but white bass grow a bit large. Keep in mind that the type of fish that I described above are difficult to keep even for experienced aquarists so I'd get some experience with species like darters and shiners under your belt before jumping to white bass, emerald shiners, whitefish, shad, etc.

Well since he started eating the bass has by far become the dominant fish in the tank and is even bullying the other fish. I added a divider but he keeps slipping through it so I just put him in his own 5.5 gallon tank until he gets a bit bigger. He's already eating an hour after being transferred so I'm not to worried about him, plus the bluegill and sucker are much more active now that he is out of their tank.

Do you have pics of this little guy? He sounds feisty.

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That's the best picture I can get of him at the moment. Sadly just diagnosed him with ich a few hours ago so I did a 40% WC and added a bit of salt plus some metronidazole which normally works for me so hopefully things clear up with him soon. He's been pretty sluggish all day because of this and just as I'm going to take a picture decides to be afraid of every little movement so I can't get a good pic lol.

Little guy passed away last night . I didn't think he was going to make it overnight honestly, every part of his body was completely covered with ich including his eyelids and gills. Next time I take one home I'm going to collect it myself and not take it from a bait bucket.

Once ich gets to the levels you're talking about, it's usually fatal on an already stressed/immunocompromised fish.  Best course of action is preventative medicine.  You could treat your next fish right away with any number of ich remedies before the infestation gets that high...especially being in an overcrowded bait bucket.  Through no fault of your own, it sounds like that guy was already doomed.  Kudos for giving it a shot.  Another cool species that doesn't get much love in the home aquarium.

Once ich gets to the levels you're talking about, it's usually fatal on an already stressed/immunocompromised fish.  Best course of action is preventative medicine.  You could treat your next fish right away with any number of ich remedies before the infestation gets that high...especially being in an overcrowded bait bucket.  Through no fault of your own, it sounds like that guy was already doomed.  Kudos for giving it a shot.  Another cool species that doesn't get much love in the home aquarium.

Yeah I'll have to add salt and meds right away next time even if I don't see anything. I'm definitely giving this species another shot sometime, I just need to catch them myself.

Perhaps you should stock up on food in advance, as well? Might be able to establish a breeding colony of glass shrimp and/or gambusia in a spare tank, to be certain that you have enough live food for the next baby in case it's similarly fussy.