I had the chance to get a couple of free longears from a local guy that was frustrated with having to keep them in separate tanks. I took them off his hands mostly just to get him into shiners and other local natives. But I also decided that it would be an opportunity for me to experiment with adding a sunfish into a community tank.
I have 4 bluehead chubs and 12 yellowfin shiners in my 75 gallon tank. Sunday, I added a 6 inch longear to that mix. So far, he seems distracted by all the commotion of the other 16 fish and is not eating yet (plus his transfer and spending a night in a bucket, I am not surprised). The shiners are all schooled up and facing him where ever he is, even if it means that have to put their back to the current. I have seen him charge one of the chubs that approached him too close, but nothing serious yet.
This is just day one of the experiment, so far so good. Here area a couple of pictures.
Bluehead Chub and blurry Yellowfin Shiners (I dont know how any of you get still photos inside an aquarium).
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And here is the new guy (he's a 3 yr old zimmermans longear)
aquarium longear.jpg 112.98KB 3 downloads
Here he is in the photo tank (which he really did not like, hence the clamped caudal)
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