INFO on bluegill or sunfish?

[sostoudt]

ok today i caught my first bluegill. i was aiming for a pumpkinseed but i can use the bluegill to cycle the tank(well to a level suitable for larger bioload i psuedo cycled with guppies).

anyway i wondered if you mfkers have any information on keeping bluegills and pumpkinseeds as pets. my plan is to breed the sunfish and attempt to bring out better coloration, to add another species to our growing hobby(do you think this is ambitious lol). so any info on breeding is also appreciated.

also if anybody can provide info on sexing that will really be appreciated.

 

[sostoudt]

on more question what kind of food should i feed it? cichlid or goldfish? do you think the color enhancing version will have any effect.

 

[WahooWillie]

Ambitious indeed!
If you truelly want to start breeding and enhance color, it will be a long process of many generations that must be organized with good book-keeping. Also, if you plan on selling them, you must possess a commercial dealers liscence (which is quite expensive).

To start, find the brightest male and the best looking female. The males will be much brighter/more colorful than the female. If not in spawning colors you can try to vent sex them (as you would a goldfish).

My sunnies have been trained to take Hikari Cichlid Gold (recommended to me years ago by many other sunnies-keepers). They will take them with relish. If you want to further enhance colors, you could try color enhancing food, but nothing brightens them up like plump live food.

 

[sostoudt]

Ambitious indeed!
If you truelly want to start breeding and enhance color, it will be a long process of many generations that must be organized with good book-keeping. Also, if you plan on selling them, you must possess a commercial dealers liscence (which is quite expensive).

To start, find the brightest male and the best looking female. The males will be much brighter/more colorful than the female. If not in spawning colors you can try to vent sex them (as you would a goldfish).

My sunnies have been trained to take Hikari Cichlid Gold (recommended to me years ago by many other sunnies-keepers). They will take them with relish. If you want to further enhance colors, you could try color enhancing food, but nothing brightens them up like plump live food.

thanks for the info.
i do believe i have a female bluegill in there now, as it is quite plain looking and this is the breeding season. although i read some sunfish males take on female coloration to sneak into a rivals males nest to get a chance to crash the sex and spread his sperm. wish i checked the vent when i hooked it lol.
i will have to see how the see how the pumpkins in my area look compared to the bluegills next time i go fishing, maybe i will try blue gills although they get larger. the one i caught is maybe six or seven inches.
i have to say its adapting pretty fast to tank life for afish that was just caught 3 hours ago.

can different types of sunfish interbreed?
have you had any mating expierences in your tank?

 

[sostoudt]

it does a odd dance every once in a while where it turns almost vertical and sways its body left and right in almost a snapping motion. its tail stays more or less in the same place. do you know whats thats about? is it trying to scare me off?

 

[WattaMelon]

It's probably a male. That odd dance you're seeing is how they create their beds for breeding. My males all do it regularly, even when they're not ready to breed.

Before you further consider breeding for sale, check with your state regarding the breeding and resale of game fish. I know that in most states (like mine) you're required special licenses, and like stated above it's not cheap. In Minnesota, an aquaculture license for yearly sales totaling less than $200 dollars costs about $100, if you include the fish license you need to posses fish, and an exportation permit. If you sell more than $200 yearly, the fees are higher and you have to be registered as a fish farm, which is more money and you're subject to inspection by the DNR. There's also federal laws you have to be aware of.

As far as the biology of these fish, it might be a good idea to get aquainted with the basic in's and out's of these fish before you begin any kind of breeding program. I suggest reading more about them on NANFA (even supporting NANFA is a good idea if you're going to get that deep into the hobby, it's a wealth of invaluable information and the community is extremely helpful).

I don't think you're over your head. In fact, the mere idea of someone taking this kind of interest in these fish excites me. Do your homework first.

Best of luck!

 

[Noto]

I'll second all of what Willie and WattaMelon said. To add to it, sunfish are predators, so cichlid diets will be more nutritious for them than goldfish diets, which have more plant matter.

To answer some of your other questions:

Sunfish are fairly easy to breed in captivity. All you really need is a substrate they like to nest in (usually gravel will work), a mature male and some mature females (males get rough and are persistent, so you need at least two females to spread out his attentions).

You won't be the first on the scene; Brian Zimmerman is breeding and selling several species of sunfish, though to my knowledge he is not trying to "improve" the animals.

Sunfish are notorious hybridizers, both in nature and captivity. Some hybrids are fertile, some are not.

I suggest you go to the NANFA forum to talk to some of the experienced sunfish breeders there. Particularly talk to Brian (username "smbass") and the guy whose username is "centrarchid"; they are both very knowledgeable about breeding sunnies, and centrarchid has done a lot of work with hybrid sunnies.

 

[WattaMelon]

I suggest you go to the NANFA forum to talk to some of the experienced sunfish breeders there. Particularly talk to Brian (username "smbass") and the guy whose username is "centrarchid"; they are both very knowledgeable about breeding sunnies, and centrarchid has done a lot of work with hybrid sunnies.

Thanks Nathan. I've had some questions myself for someone who knows what they're doing with hybrids.

 

[sostoudt]

Before you further consider breeding for sale, check with your state regarding the breeding and resale of game fish. I know that in most states (like mine) you're required special licenses, and like stated above it's not cheap. In Minnesota, an aquaculture license for yearly sales totaling less than $200 dollars costs about $100, if you include the fish license you need to posses fish, and an exportation permit. If you sell more than $200 yearly, the fees are higher and you have to be registered as a fish farm, which is more money and you're subject to inspection by the DNR. There's also federal laws you have to be aware of.

im am unsure about the aquaculture license. however it is lawful for me to take up to 5 animals(of a species) from the wild for personal purposes excluding education or exhibiton(permits are required for those). so far as i can tell the laws of what i do with captive bred specimens from there are relaxed(not including commercial interests).

 

[WattaMelon]

Sounds good, as long as you're informed.