Are blue gills cichlids?

[Noto]

I would suggest you investigate the other sunfish out there. Bluegill are one of the biggest and drabbest sunfish.

 

[warmouth]

If you want pretty and Semi-aggressive go with the Pumpkinseeds or Longears, (both do not do well with high temps for extended periods of time). If you want just aggressive (like a Jack Dempsey or firemouth in temperment) and kind of drab looking go with Green sunfish (usually pretty tolerant and hardy fish to keep); or if you want hardy and peacefull theres the Orangespot sunfishes and hardy and aggressive during breeding the Dollar sunfish (both are dazzling looking). I love sunfish but I have to warn you that the big ones need alot of space and water changes. A good place to get some is Jonahs, Sachs and Zimmermans all on the internet (Zimmermans is on the NANFA website).

 

[ShadowBass]

Good post Noto

Sunfish do tend behave a lot like cichlids though so I can see how people think they might be related. They can even be kept together successfully in a lot of cases.

 

[Bee0912]

I had one from my friends farm pond for 6 months and all was well. When i moved he bacame an a** and tried to kill my 13inch silver arowana so i had to get rid of him. Aro is 100% again dont worry.

 

[knifegill]

I've got four sunfish with my Oscar and L200 and all is well so far. One adult green sunfish, three green x pumpkinseed sunnies from a local who bred them thinking both species were "just bluegill". Silly people...

 

[boldtogether]

Bluegill are in the family Centrarchidae, along with largemouth and smallmouth bass, crappie, and other sunfish. Cichlids form the family Cichlidae. An easy way to tell sunfish from cichlids is to look at the nostrils: sunfish have two pairs, cichlids only one.

Cichlids and centrarchids are both in Perciformes, but so are a couple hundred other families and nearly half of all fish species. These two families are not particularly closely related within Perciformes. The cichlids used to be thought to be closely related to wrasses (Labridae), but this now seems to be untrue. The latest studies I have seen place cichlids in a big group including blennies, atherinomorphs (livebearers, killifish, silversides, flyingfish, half-beaks, etc.) and the snakehead-gourami-swamp eel group.

Most familiar aquarium fishes from livebearers to seahorses to bettas to dats are perciforms, except for the otariophysans (cyprinids, loaches, tetras, piranhas, catfishes) and the various "ancient" fishes like arowanas, featherfin knives, and stingrays.

DITTO. I love blue gil...

 

[kjfan1]

Interesting. Maybe I will get the oscar a chew toy.

 

[FishFreak95]

No they are not. another good way is to look at there lateral line. cichlids have a broken lateral line and sunfish have one complete lateral line.

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