How do you take care of sunfish?

Answer 1

I have kept sunfish and know of other people who keep sunfish as pets. I would not use anything smaller than a 28 gal. The larger the better especially if you plan on keeping more than one, even for little ones because they grow quite large. In my tank I I have several rocks piled into 2 little caves where they like to hide/sleep. They eat smaller sinking pellets (it takes them a couple of days to get used to it and you can feed them small minnows or worms or insects that you find as a treat). If you plan on giving them any friends, (Algae eaters etc.) you should make sure they are too big for the fish to eat because they will try to eat anything that fits in their mouth.

Ignore the prude that said you should not try to domesticate animals etc. etc... They obviously do not realize that almost all salt water fish come from the wild as do many of the harder to breed fresh water species.

This page has a lot of information on caring for and breeding sunfish.

http://www.fishchannel.com/freshwater-aquariums/fish-breeding/breeding-sunfish.aspx

Answer 2

Well what I did was first I hot yearlings ones that were an inch or smaller in length at this time they are still learning the surroundings and will grow adapt and thrive in your tank if taken care of correctly. Fill half your tank with the water from their original location this is key to their survival you want the mineral and ph levels not to far off. Try your best to make your tank resemble the ecosystem. If you see gravel, sand, weeds rocks etc.. My tank has gravel milfoil weeds, and a water logged cedear root. Your tank should have a good filter and 20 percent of the water shoukd be changed every two weeks. People say once a week but I found with trial and error every to weeks was optimal to often and water temp and minerAl concentration fluctuated to often which stressed the fish. With all that said make sure the temperature of your local pond is the temp. Of your aquarium especially when you get em. You want the easiest transition possible if it is fall you want your tank cooler warmer in the summer you get the point. You need a 55 gal tank min and that will house two max they tend to be territorial and will fight for tank placements. Shoot they fight just cause it amusing to watch really. So an additional 10- 20 gals per sunfish. Feeding- when you first catch make sure you catch em via a net if you angled them a it's stressful b they are probably to big and c you are doing damage to they're mouths so get a net go along the shoreline use your butterfly net a swiftly sift through the shallow weeds you will find tons most likely take a couple release the rest. Feed them tropical fish flakes when they are inch size and chiclid pellets when they get bigger. Make sure you and actually meat to their diet pellets can only supplement so much. I like to buy cooked crab and chop it all up to bite size portions and feed them until they are full and put the rest in the freezer to preserve it. On package of crab will last months and they love it. And considering their diet is aquatic clams and crayfish a crustacean meal seems to fit. If you don't want all that hassle you can go to pet store and by blood worms and feed them that. They should be fed morning lunch and dinner if you want colourful healthy and linked sized sunfish, when they get older pellets and baby feeders will do. As well as crickets mealworms and othe insects experiement alittle. Just remember to start with babies or else you are wasting your time and a fishes life adult or youth sunfish will hardly ever adapt to tank life and you will notice signs of great stress. Follow those guidelines and you will be successful and have healthy aggressive and happy sunfish! Oh and when I started I read alot of sites where people say sunfish dont make good aquarium fish and to go to the pet store. To all of them shut the front door you don't know what your talking about all tropical fish are native somewhere they adapted just like pumpkinseed can it just has to be done correctly. I have caught and now own sunfish for a while and they have grown to be healthy vibrantly beautiful fish honestly like more yellow blue and green than any sunfish I have caught while fishing. Ps. Leave the tank at room temp a heater is not needed just match the temp at the beginning and allow it to adjust to room temp with the fish in it. Oh and people say to check your fish regs. It's smart to do so but honestly sunfish populations are enormous more so than is needed to the point where dwarfing in high density populations is way to common so go find an area like that and you will be doing that ecosystem a favor. I know that's a problem in Ontario as our fish limit exceeds 300 sunfish per person.