As soon as the sunfish in my local lake / small creeks between local lakes have finished spawning I'm going to try to catch myself a group if juveniles. The fish will be going into quarantine for a few weeks and then be moved into my 75 gallon tropical setup. For the longest time I didn't think you could ever intermix the two but after having tons of people on NANFA, here, and youtube advise me towards it I'm going to give it a try. My 75 has a current stock of 6 giant danios, 1 striped raphael catfish, 1 gibbiceps pleco, and a pair of cutteri cichlids (hopefully the cichlids will be given to a friend of mine before I move the sunnies in). The tank temp ranges between 75-78 F depending on room temp since I've made the decision to not heat any of my setups during the summer since my house gets so warm at this time of year. The pH is 7.6 so it should match the water the fish will be caught out of pretty well. I do have a backup location incase I can't catch any fish at my local park with a dipnet (it is next to impossible not to 
) but the reason I'm catching them from there is because the ones that dwell in the very shallow (1.5" - 24") stretches of the creek that connects my local lakes put up with very warm water I'm the summer since it warms faster (I've seen it get over 84!!!) and figured they're better suited towards warmer water.
Now ow my plan is to catch a small school (5-6) of one of the three kinds of Lepomis sunfish that live in the local lake. They include Bluegills, Pumpkinseeds, and Greens. I'll probably do bluegills or pumpkinseeds since I can only imagine how aggressive a group of full grown greens would be
. I may even do a mixture a bluegills and pumpkinseeds. The next step is to introduce them into my tank all at once and let them live together until they start putting on some attitude. Obviously I can't house 6 adult sunfish of any of the kinds I mentioned together in a 75 in addition to the other fish I already have so once they get bigger (assuming I'd have a pretty good chance at having at least one of each sex) I'm going to try to find the dominant male and the two best looking females and keep them while I put the other 2-3 in my friends private landlocked pond. You can probably tell by now what my final goal is, what with growing out a group then finding a male with two females... To breed the, of course! Now I know that sunfish are going to get very aggressive when they breed but I'm willing to temporarily rehouse my other fish if it comes to that. If I'm lucky enough maybe I'll get a male gill to pair off with a couple of female seeds so I can get hybrid sunnies, I was catching tons of bluegill X pumpkinseed adults in erie a few weeks ago and they were huge and a good fight so maybe I'll get some sportmens clubs to take a few off my hands. This again is all hypothetical, I'm getting the sunfish just because I'd like to have some in my 75, I'm just very well prepared (and hopeful they do) for if they do spawn is all.
Looking forward to getting even more sunfish! I'll keep this thread updated
) but the reason I'm catching them from there is because the ones that dwell in the very shallow (1.5" - 24") stretches of the creek that connects my local lakes put up with very warm water I'm the summer since it warms faster (I've seen it get over 84!!!) and figured they're better suited towards warmer water. Now ow my plan is to catch a small school (5-6) of one of the three kinds of Lepomis sunfish that live in the local lake. They include Bluegills, Pumpkinseeds, and Greens. I'll probably do bluegills or pumpkinseeds since I can only imagine how aggressive a group of full grown greens would be
. I may even do a mixture a bluegills and pumpkinseeds. The next step is to introduce them into my tank all at once and let them live together until they start putting on some attitude. Obviously I can't house 6 adult sunfish of any of the kinds I mentioned together in a 75 in addition to the other fish I already have so once they get bigger (assuming I'd have a pretty good chance at having at least one of each sex) I'm going to try to find the dominant male and the two best looking females and keep them while I put the other 2-3 in my friends private landlocked pond. You can probably tell by now what my final goal is, what with growing out a group then finding a male with two females... To breed the, of course! Now I know that sunfish are going to get very aggressive when they breed but I'm willing to temporarily rehouse my other fish if it comes to that. If I'm lucky enough maybe I'll get a male gill to pair off with a couple of female seeds so I can get hybrid sunnies, I was catching tons of bluegill X pumpkinseed adults in erie a few weeks ago and they were huge and a good fight so maybe I'll get some sportmens clubs to take a few off my hands. This again is all hypothetical, I'm getting the sunfish just because I'd like to have some in my 75, I'm just very well prepared (and hopeful they do) for if they do spawn is all.Looking forward to getting even more sunfish! I'll keep this thread updated
