most underrated fish in your opinion

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someone's gonna make a ton of money catching them and exporting them!

I certainly hope not. Sunnies are smaller at full size than many of the cichlids that are regularly bred in the hobby. Captive breeding on a commercial scale should be no more difficult than for those cichlids, and will produce more and healthier specimens than unregulated collecting, without any negative impacts on the natural populations.

If you have a bunch of greedy a-holes with nets decimating wild populations, some may suffer harm that is irreversible, or at least very slow to reverse. If the fish are lucky, there will be legislation enacted to protect them, and as usually happens it will be a knee-jerk over-reaction that might include banning of any ownership or captive breeding, and might extend to a broad range of unaffected species. When that happens, everybody loses. Aquarists lose the chance to own and breed these fish, and the fish themselves lose by not having nearly as much public awareness of them.

Don't be a greedy a-hole with a net; be a responsible keeper and breeder who works for the benefit of both aquarists and fish. This would include keeping pure species lines pure, rather than creating hybrid monstrosities just for gits'n'shiggles...but that's a rant for another day. I'll fold up my soap-box now, before the flamethrowers come out. :)
 
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I certainly hope not. Sunnies are smaller at full size than many of the cichlids that are regularly bred in the hobby. Captive breeding on a commercial scale should be no more difficult than for those cichlids, and will produce more and healthier specimens than unregulated collecting, without any negative impacts on the natural populations.

If you have a bunch of greedy a-holes with nets decimating wild populations, some may suffer harm that is irreversible, or at least very slow to reverse. If the fish are lucky, there will be legislation enacted to protect them, and as usually happens it will be a knee-jerk over-reaction that might include banning of any ownership or captive breeding, and might extend to a broad range of unaffected species. When that happens, everybody loses. Aquarists lose the chance to own and breed these fish, and the fish themselves lose by not having nearly as much public awareness of them.

Don't be a greedy a-hole with a net; be a responsible keeper and breeder who works for the benefit of both aquarists and fish. This would include keeping pure species lines pure, rather than creating hybrid monstrosities just for gits'n'shiggles...but that's a rant for another day. I'll fold up my soap-box now, before the flamethrowers come out. :)
Personally I agree. Sunfish and other native species are all very underrated fish. Personally I'd love to see more native fish become more common in the hobby but they only way for that to happen is if ppl were to start breeding em and distributing them everywhere. Well that and they would need to be more commercially available. So far there are some breeders that do raise, breed and sell these natives species but just a handful of ppl can only do so much work on their own. Honestly tho we do have allot of native fish that could even rival African cichlids in their own beauty.
 
Personally I agree. Sunfish and other native species are all very underrated fish. Personally I'd love to see more native fish become more common in the hobby but they only way for that to happen is if ppl were to start breeding em and distributing them everywhere. Well that and they would need to be more commercially available. So far there are some breeders that do raise, breed and sell these natives species but just a handful of ppl can only do so much work on their own. Honestly tho we do have allot of native fish that could even rival African cichlids in their own beauty.
one native fish distributer I know has a very special fish he's planning on breeding. I honestly think this single fish could get people to keep natives. The fish is definitely one of a kind rn, but he plans on changing that like I said It is...... drum roll, please! A golden sunfish. Super super cool!
 
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Looks like a bluegill with that striping pattern. Very neat tho, wouldn't mind having one myself lol. Currently I'm still looking for some male and female Lepomis Humilis (A.K.A) the orange spotted sunfish. I just love the bright neon blue color with rusty orange spots on the males. Females are kinda lack luster being more grey then blue.
 
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I wouldn’t mind to see darters/log perches and shiners more available. I enjoy wading in creeks and seeing big schools of emerald shiners with a few darters swimming away from me.
 
I wouldn’t mind to see darters/log perches and shiners more available. I enjoy wading in creeks and seeing big schools of emerald shiners with a few darters swimming away from me.
I remember a time where my dad caught a wild emerald shimmer on hook/line. Lol it was about 6.5in. We were stumped on what it could be since neither of us had ever seen/caught one before.

Lol honestly even a creek chub looks nice in it's breeding colors. Gets a really nice deep red belly. Here's a pic of a 11in one I caught, lol so far holds the record for the biggest one I caught.

cameringo_20200510_201829.jpg
 
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wo
I remember a time where my dad caught a wild emerald shimmer on hook/line. Lol it was about 6.5in. We were stumped on what it could be since neither of us had ever seen/caught one before.

Lol honestly even a creek chub looks nice in it's breeding colors. Gets a really nice deep red belly. Here's a pic of a 11in one I caught, lol so far holds the record for the biggest one I caught.

View attachment 1446965
world record emerald shiner lol
 
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