Centrarchid aggression

[piranha45]

Based on what I've read from many others, I understand that smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, bluegill and green sunfish can be absolute thugs in the aquarium, more often than not. Does your experience agree with that?

Are there any other bass/sunnies that are oftentimes real brutes as well? I hear that some sunfish, like longears, aren't nearly so bad as bluegills and greens.

Are there any species that are virtually guaranteed to be peaceful, that you know of? What's does your experience regarding other bass species' aggression; any that can be as bad ass LMBs/SMBs?

 

[The TRUST]

My experience with Sunfish is pretty much they are aggressive like cichlids. As for the bass it differs.

When I keep LMB they are usually mellow towards other fish in my tank. Except other LMB! But when I kept them in a pond, I had a ton of them. About close to 70 fish and they showed no agression. I guess it was the large numbers.

On SMB. I never had them long enough in the tank. When I caught some before I placed them in my cooler. You'd think that the fish would be all stressed out from the catch. So I took them home and washed up and took a little nap. When I opened the cooler later they had beaten each other so badly. Scales all over the place. So I only had 1 survivor. But when I took that suvivor and put him in my tank. He only last a couple days and the other Monster fish in my tank ate him. LOL!

 

[WckedMidas]

sunnys bluegills green ears grean ear hybrids are like cichlids on crack. willing to take on all chalengers big or small. Might even take a bite of y if you stick you hand in the tank
has havent kept befor so i duno

 

[JRMunroe]

I put 9 3-inch Sunfish (3 Bluegills, 6 Red-ear Sunfish) and a Grass Pickerel in a 90 gallon tank about a year ago.
At first the Sunfish were very territorial, but never really hurt each other. Now they only make half-hearted feints to establish territory, which is amazing because they’ve grown so much since. (The largest Bluegill is 8” long.) The sunfish totally ignore the Pickerel, catfish, etc. and vice versa. My only problem is, since they’ve all survived and grown, I soon must upgrade to a 200 gallon tank for them.

I can tell you they’re very hard on live plants.

I tried putting 5 in. largemouth bass in with them at the beginning, but they were far too aggressive and I returned them immediately. I didn’t like them enough to keep one all by itself in a tank. Maybe I didn’t give them enough of a chance, but they were so aggressive I felt they’d kill the other fish.

I’ve had Green Sunfish in the past. They’re very aggressive, and even attacked me when I put my arm in the tank (didn’t hurt at all, but was a shock if unexpected.) I was only able to keep a single one in a tank, although I did keep turtles in the tank at one time without event.

I have a 45-gal with 5 baby Spotted Sunfish, along with Golden Shiners. I’m told they won’t be very territorial, but it’s too early for me to tell.

I’ve not kept Cichlids, so I can’t compare.

 

[ewurm]

An LFS employee told me he had pumpkinseed sunfish and a northern pike in 110gal and the sunfish killed the pike!

 

[sandtiger]

IME sunfish are very aggresive, not so much the members of the black bass genus though. Sunfish in the lepomis genus seem to be the most aggresive. Pumpkinseeds, bluegill etc. I have two pumpkinseeds in a 55g and the larger one chases and picks at the smaller once in awhile but it is not a constant or dangerious problem. He also chases the bullhead a bit who is a good deal larger than he is. I don't know about other sunfish though such as blackbanded, fliers or rock bass.

 

[piranha45]

An LFS employee told me he had pumpkinseed sunfish and a northern pike in 110gal and the sunfish killed the pike!

Sources seem to be unanimous in saying that pike/pickerel are completely docile to anything that wont fit in their mouths