bowfin and sunfish?

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dirtbikerider

Gambusia
MFK Member
Mar 1, 2010
843
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16
Louisiana
In my native setup I currently have 1 Florida gar, 1 warmouth sunfish, and one red spot sunfish. I've got a chance to get a bowfin to grow out and eventually put with my other natives

My issue is, and I'm pretty sure it won't work but I just want some natives expert opinions and experiences. Wouldn't I have to worry about the bowfin attacking and likely eating the red spot sunfish?
 
Bowfin will eat anything that will fit in its mouth. You mention "growout". You should be OK if your sunfish are bigger that the bowfin.

Extremely strange but true story. I threw a bunch of bluegill into both my outdoor GarDen (with gar/ bowfin) and my indoor aquarium with bowfin. In both cases, within a few days most of the bluegills were food. Funny thing is that it was the bigger bluegills that were eaten. In both cases the smallest of the bluegills are still inhabitants of the tank and pond! This was in the early summer that I added the bluegills. This is like 8 months that they have now been lived together. The 13" bowfin in my indoor aquarium is housed with a 4" bluegill. The bowfin was closer to around 5" eight months ago while the bluegill were added. They were 1.5" to around 2.5" range. The biggest were all devoured within a week.

Outside in the GarDen the bowfin is about the same size. A 2' longnose gar is top dog in the tank. They allowed the three smallest bluegills to coinhabit the pond. The smallest of the three resident bluegill in the pond is about 3". Unfreakin'believable!
 
Wow that is crazy... so probably better to just not worry with it right? My smallest sunfish is the red spot hat is pretty much maxed out at 6". The bowfin will be smaller for a while but eventually I think it will become a problem, but after hearing your story who knows, they seem to be very unpredictable
 
our big bowfin never shows any interest in the 6" sunfish (bluegill?) in his tank. he could easily swallow the sunfish, but has never tried. he squares off at feeding time with a bullhead that's about his size. also doesn't care about the lmb at all. "unpredictable" seems to be about right.
oliver
 
dirtbikerider;4918986; said:
Wow that is crazy... so probably better to just not worry with it right? My smallest sunfish is the red spot hat is pretty much maxed out at 6". The bowfin will be smaller for a while but eventually I think it will become a problem, but after hearing your story who knows, they seem to be very unpredictable
Click to expand...

Not being that familiar with the aggressiveness red spot, I would have to seriously think that it would not be able to defend itself and make for very easy prey.

Bluegills are an extremely aggressive pan fish and were never any match for a bowfin! You might try the more aggressive warmouth with the bowfin as it would probably stand a better chance.

At the same time I added the bluegills to the gar/ bowfin tanks I also added two to my tank holding three RBP's. The three RBP's were around 6" while the two bluegills were around 8". No brainier food for my RBP's. Not so. The bluegills beat the unholy crap out of the piranha. The only good thing to come of throwing the bluegills into the rbp tank was that the RBP's would only eat live food prior to being housed with the bluegills. They would never take market fish or shrimp.

I threw meat chunks into the tank and the bluegills quickly devoured them. It only took one day for the first piranha to learn from the bluegills that the meat chunks were food and started eating the meat chunks tossed into the tank. In less that a week all three RBP's were eating non-live!

While the bluegills never did end up making food for the piranhas, they did at least teach them to accept non-live!
 
Ok well I think I will give it a shot, good news is I will have the tank decorated with TONS of hiding places, and its a 210

and also I have a couple spare tanks that if I can catch the aggression before the red spot becomes lunch I can save the lil guy, but im hoping I can make it work

So fingers crossed, but it may help that the red spot will be in the tank before the bowfin, because the bowfin will have to grow some more so that he doesn't become food for my warmouth
 
screaminleeman, fish look great, thanks for posting them!
 
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