Breeding/Hybridizing Sunfish

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FLESHY

Polypterus
MFK Member
Jan 7, 2006
5,542
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Central Wisconsin
Who has done it, and what with?

I have been wanting to get into this for awhile and my facility just got expanded a little to maybe open up the door for this...

Interested to see what you guys have to say.
 
I would have thought Bluegill and green sunfish would be your best bet, thats the only sunfish hybrid i've seen. Someone will see this that has a pond full of hybrid sunfish etc
 
This wont be...put two sunfish together and see what happens...it will be more along the lines of hormones, fertilizing eggs etc.

Frankenfish.

I just want to know what people have done thus far...I see the cyanellusxmacrochirus hybrid all the time in the wild.
 
You want to hybridize fish for the hell of it? Any reason other than it's cool, like creating flowerhorns? You'll need to condition the fish first. A cold period with little light, followed by a warming period with increased photoperiod and lots of high quality foods. Fish may not be attracted to sunfish of a different species (that is, after all, how they became species on their own), so you will likely just have to manually express gametes and fertilize the eggs yourself. That is all. Just make sure you don't release any of your creations if you are successful.
 
This is being done in a laboratory setting...I have a 210g aquaculture run with dividers and a chiller for conditioning multiple fishes and the photoperiod part is easy.

Temp and light is done.

The hybrids that we are thinking about making are going to need to be artificially done.

I have seen people talk about their lepomis spawning for them on here...I cant believe there isnt more discussion.
 
Try doing a green sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus) x orangespotted sunfish (Lepomis humilis) cross. I bet that the colors on the resulting offspring would be awesome if those two species can form a hybrid via artificial fertilization plus there might be a market for it in the fish trade if the hybrid stays closer in size to the orangespotted sunfish since they get to be 4" long at the most.

All the breeding of sunfish that I've had happen has been strictly with bluegills in a pond setting, so I really didn't have any control over it.
 
Wiggles, get up here so that you can be a part of this.

We arent certain what we are going to do yet...I have ideas floating around in my head, but not going to say anything until they are hatched and wigglin.
 
I would love to see a pumkinseed sunfish and a Green Sunfish hybrid, i think that would be a beautiful fish, Not sure if it was done already tho.
 
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