Yellow Perch with cichlids???

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twhittle

twhittle

Peacock Bass
MFK Member
Feb 8, 2007
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Clarkston, Wa
So this student at the school I teach knows I keep fish. He calls me today and says he caught a cool 8 inch yellow perch and he wants to give him to me. I had a 55 gallon tank in my garage with a single 7 inch texas cichlid in it so I told him he could come drop it in. He is a very cool looking fish. So the question is, can I keep a yellow perch with cichlids? I have several tanks that vary in aggression level. Can yellow perch thrive in 76-78 degree water? Is this a realistic idea to keep him? I would like to put him in my 125 with some bigger cichlids.
 
Yellow perch will grow like a weed in 76-78 degree water with alot of food. If you have any Africans like Bumblebee (crabro) then your perch will be destroyed unless it is over 10 inches, then it seems that the crabros will not bother it anymore. Texas are aggressive but with any fish it is on the temperment of that exact fish.

The only catch here is that once you introduce the perch to other fish that are not native to the same lake or river you cannot re-release it back into the lake or river where you got it. If you put it in the tank and the texas starts to beat on it then you may have to destroy the perch or find a person with a pond that is not connected to any public bodies of water (find a person with a closed private pond) or fish tank that can house a fish that has the possibility to reach 16+ inches (rare but possible)
 
I do have a 55 he could have to himself, but I was curious if they could handle life with Oscars and Jack Dempsey's etc...
 
JDs are aggressive (at least mine are) and Oscars are hit or miss (They can be gentle giants, peace keepers, or utter terrors). The only thing that you can do is try it but have a plan for moving the fish otherwise you have to do what I said in the previous post.

A lone perch in a 55 will last for a while but the fish will either outgrow the tank or get stunted for one reason or another. Ideal tankmates for a perch are other panfish.

Also, Perch are one of the tastiest fish I have ever eaten.
 
From what I had read, yellow perches rarely got larger then 10 inches.
 
They rarely get longer than 10 inches in a multi seasonal environment. In a controlled aquarium with good temperature, clean water, and proper feeding you should be able to get a 12 inch perch in a couple years.

Cold, dirty water and a bad diet can slow and/or stunt their growth.
 
Yakuza-Irezumi;1198634; said:
Your tank is only a foot wide.55 too small for that fish.
Click to expand...


First of all I disagree. The fish is 8-9 inches long. Secondly in the original post you will see that a 55 is not where he is going.
 
The 125 with Cichlids would be alright if the cichlids don't bother him. He could hold his own during feeding time but isn't an aggressive fish. He should just hang out under a rock or driftwood, if you have floating plants they will hang out under those.

8-9 inches. If I caught that in the wild I would eat it. I would prefer to get a perch a little smaller and grow it. I usually take a bucket of 20-30 of them home and pull out the nicest looking and let the rest go in my pond to feed the largemouths and channel cats.
 
I have a small 3" Yellow Perch that I got, the problem with my Yellow Perch is that he has the piece of skin that covers the gill ripped off and its missing. I got him like that and his gill is fine like he swims around normal and all. The only problem is that when I drop in the Rosy Red minnows when its time to feed, he isnt able to catch them and he hasnt eaten anything in 2 weeks. Any suggestions on what I can feed him?
 
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