New to sunfish
#1
Posted 25 June 2016 - 10:46 PM
#2
Posted 25 June 2016 - 10:55 PM
Even if you get very little juveniles
those things will bully eachother senseless, I suggest only getting a healthy, breeding-color male because I have not a clue on keeping more than one (my largest tanks (I have two 30 gallon tanks, one of them houses a growing Pumpkinseed) wouldn't allow for more than 1 sunfish anyway)
"All good things must come to an end, but bad things think thats rather dull, so they stick around long after their natural end has come"
-From an art book I read
#4
Posted 26 June 2016 - 05:33 AM
I recommend getting several small sunfish. Keeping numbers high can help manage discord. You can also manage discord by going the monosex route.
What species options do you have? Some are much less aggressive than others.
#5
Posted 26 June 2016 - 06:43 AM
Other then decorative items you will want mechanical and biological filtration. Some people use chemical filtration likeep charcoal but that's optional.
If you have no equipment you should get a HOB filter or 2. Aquaclears are popular. I have been using aqueons and like them. It is a waste of money to use the standard filter cartridges. Buy a sheet of felt from a art store and cut it to the right size of the filter. You can also use a sponge. Put that in for your mechanical and have the water flow through that first. Behind that use ceramic rings or crushed lava rock for bio filtration.
I use powerheads in all my tanks, once again you don't need it . A cheap sunsun will work fine.
Plants are very beneficial to a tank. It takes up waste from the water and gives you fish something to pick at. You can use t5s or LEDs. If you get something like elodia you won't need much light.
In short you need.
1) Decorations/Substrate
2) filter hang on back or a canster works.
3) Lights
I would also grab a handfull of sand or some rocks from a local pond to seed your tank with life. Bring a bucket with water and shake some plants off in it.
#8
Posted 26 June 2016 - 08:02 AM
I would also grab a handfull of sand or some rocks from a local pond to seed your tank with life. Bring a bucket with water and shake some plants off in it.
Do I need to do anything to the sand and rocks? Didn't know if I needed to boil the rocks or not.
Edited by Smitty5783, 26 June 2016 - 08:03 AM.
#9
Posted 26 June 2016 - 09:16 AM
You also have flier sunfish - they're usually less belligerent than the Lepomis sunfishes, but a little trickier to train onto pellet food. They'll eat worms and fresh or frozen shrimp just fine. It's always a gamble when keeping multiple sunfish. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Best to statrt off with a group of young, so they grow up together. Bluegill are a bit more social than other Lepomis, but once their spawning instinct hits, males of all species are pretty nasty. A single male sunfish or a few females in a tank with a group of large minnows (white, golden, satinfin shiners, bluehead chub, creek chub) and small-med catfish (margined madtom, snail bullhead) might work. I wouldn't bother boiling the sand and rocks, unless of course you plan to boil the fish too. Native plant suggestions: Elodea, Coontail (Hornwort), Vallisneria, Najas, Echinodorus ...
Gerald Pottern
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Hangin' on the Neuse
"Taxonomy is the diaper used to organize the mess of evolution into discrete packages" - M.Sandel
#10
Posted 26 June 2016 - 09:26 AM
Also there's warmouth and mud sunfish around Goldsboro; both are good aquarium fish and manageable size.
Gerald Pottern
-----------------------
Hangin' on the Neuse
"Taxonomy is the diaper used to organize the mess of evolution into discrete packages" - M.Sandel
#12
Posted 26 June 2016 - 08:04 PM
Yes I know where you are ... location is listed under your screen name, if you join as a member. I'm in Wake Forest. Join up and see where everybody else is! "itsnotme" (Brandon) is in Smithfield/Selma area.
Gerald Pottern
-----------------------
Hangin' on the Neuse
"Taxonomy is the diaper used to organize the mess of evolution into discrete packages" - M.Sandel
#16
Posted 28 June 2016 - 11:53 AM
#17
Posted 18 July 2016 - 12:16 PM
Sunnies are big, belligerent fish. Some species are more belligerent than others - I can testify that little Dollar sunfish, pound-for-pound, are the meanest things I've ever kept in a tank. Centrarchid's comments about overstocking the tank (African cichlid-style) to disperse aggression didn't really help me much in my attempts to keep a bunch of those guys in a tank!
That being said, they're so much like cichlids most advice you get for keeping new world cichlids applies. In general, they like softer water, eat lots of food, and make a mess of things in the tank. You absolutely can (and probably should) have some plants in the tank to help with filtration, but use bigger, tougher plants. What kind of physical filtration depends on how much fish you've got in that tank. They live in slack water in the creeks, so don't blow water through the tank too hard, but they're messy fish so if you want a crystal clear tank, you'll need to strike a good balance between water turnover and fish comfort.
If you're keeping bigger sunnies, in my opinion you're better off just keeping one. If you've ever seen a tropical fishkeeper's oscar, you're not far off the mark from a warmouth or butch green sunfish in behavior or aggression.
#18
Posted 22 September 2016 - 04:30 PM
I have a small greenie and he's an Ahole to everyone in the tank. He killed the other two sunfish within a few weeks of me putting them in there. He frequently patrols in front of the bullhead's burrow to make sure he doesn't get any ideas about venturing out. The bullhead only comes out to forage at night when the greenie isn't active. I wouldn't put greenies in a tank with anything else that likes open water. The catfish survive because they hide.
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