Thought I’d post a pic of this beautiful redbreast sunfish I caught while creek fishing earlier this week. I can’t help but think these would be absolutely awesome to have in some kind of native tank setup. Anyone have experience keeping them?
Look at this sunfish
- Thread starter Matth05
- Start date
They are relatively easy fish to keep, similar to CA cichlids. Take to pellets quickly. Do not need a heater so thats a plus
Used to keep one as a "Wet Pet" years ago and they will come to the glass and can be trained to eat out of your hand. They make a great solo fish. To keep them in a native tank with other fish they are going to need "room" as they are aggressive buggers. This species can be kept in a community tank with other fish (sunfish, small bass) until they get to be @ 5 inches at which point they turn into murderous little psychos. I have even seen them kill bass larger than them. Yours looks already to be that "psycho" size. Any other fish you put with them need to be bigger than what they can get in their mouth. I've had these fish attack swimming lures as big as them while fishing for bass. Again, they are aggressive.
One thing I've always wanted to try is to "crowd" them. Let's say you put 3 red breast sunfish in a 55, 70 or 90. They will develop territories, aggressively defend them and most likely murder each other. But what might be interesting to try would be to put 5 to 7 sunfish in that same tank footprint so they are too distracted with each other to develop those territories. I believe Brain Zimmerman did this; you can contact him here...He is a Native Fish guru.
One thing I've always wanted to try is to "crowd" them. Let's say you put 3 red breast sunfish in a 55, 70 or 90. They will develop territories, aggressively defend them and most likely murder each other. But what might be interesting to try would be to put 5 to 7 sunfish in that same tank footprint so they are too distracted with each other to develop those territories. I believe Brain Zimmerman did this; you can contact him here...He is a Native Fish guru.
Zimmerman's Fish - North American Native Fish
We strive to provide a wide variety of North American native fishes to private aquarists, public aquariums, and for private pond stocking.
www.zimmermansfish.com
Very cool. I released the sunfish when I caught it as I do for all fish. I tend to get pretty heated when it comes to catch and release ?. I plan on moving my Carpintis out his 55 and into a 75 within the next couple months. I might try raising one with that spare 55. Doing some quick google searches there seems to be a few people that breed and sell them. I’d hate to take a wild fish from a perfectly healthy body of water and put them in a tank.
Same here man. Nothing better then watching a big largemouth swim off nice and strong after a great fight.