bluegill

[carbonskater]

if u keep a bluegill in a small tank wont he stay small? and can u feed it pellet food?

[MoparORnoCAR]

No......NO.

[born2lovefish]

If I put you in a small box to live, would you stay small?

[carbonskater]

but with other fish if u keep them in a smaller tank they dont grow as much

[ljse]

Thats stunting. Its not supposed to happen.

[MoparORnoCAR]

but with other fish if u keep them in a smaller tank they dont grow as much

If you want to keep a bluegill you have to get a bigger tank.

[Joseph1391]

You should not put any fish that are you going to get big in a small tank!! that is mean.. they will still grow, and they will not be able to swim..

[Dangerdoll]

which includes common goldfish or comets. Instead of concentrating on the blue gill, I would start concentrating on getting a bigger tank.

[mykidsmylife]

The fish may not grow but it's called stunting. Their insides continue to grow and the fish lead misserable, painful lives. Just not a cool thing to do to another living creature. Take Dolls advice and focus on improving the life of your goldfish.

[hmt321]

The care of a bluegill and an Oscar are roughly the same, bluegill do not need a heater, and they are not quite a messy as an oscar. you will need at the very least a 55 gal tank for a bluegill. bluegill will readily eat almost anything you put in a tank once it gets used to its environment, i have fed them floating cichlid pelets, give them worms or crickets once a week or so and a few seed shrimp every so often and they will do great. one good thing about bluegill is that if you leave a bare spot ( like a 12" x 12' area) for them to fan they will leave plants pretty much alone. they are very aggressive and will seldom tolerate any additions to their tank space. so if you want to add a brushynose pleco to do a little clean up and keep algae down do it with in the first couple of weeks or the BG may harass it to death. they can tolerate a wide range of water conditions (like ph) I would do water changes to keep your nitrates below 20 ppm, your ammonia and nitrites should be 0 (of course)

how big is your bluegill?

if it is 2" or longer than it should have a round dark spot on its dorsal fin on the very back. see the pict, look at the back of it right over its tail
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c162/hmt321/bg.gif

if you do not see the spot, you may not have a bluegill, it probably is one of the other species of sunfish, the care for them is about the same but they will not get as big as a bluegill.

I have several longear sunfish that i will be moving to a 125 gal except for one which i will keep in a 40 gal wide, they get about 2/3 the size of a BG. I have heard that orange spot sunfish will do well in aquariums but i have never kept one. they get about 1/2 the size of a bluegill. other types of sunfish often take a lot longer to move them on to flake or floating pellets.
but it can be done.

hope this helps

[SuperLink88]

At the pet store they always tell me that you should have a gallon for every inch of fish, so I would think that you can keep the bluegill in the 10 gallon tank untill it gets too big the get a bigger tank

[Dangerdoll]

that's kind of unrealistic though, isn't it? Fish are always growing thus they need the size of tank that can accomodate the size of the fish once it hits adult size. Providing such a tank will allow the fish to grow to their natural size instead of stunting them by keeping them in a smaller tank. That inch per gallon rule is pretty much a myth... holds no salt.

[hmt321]

At the pet store they always tell me that you should have a gallon for every inch of fish, so I would think that you can keep the bluegill in the 10 gallon tank until it gets too big the get a bigger tank

a juvenile bluegill (3"-5") would probably max out the bio-load for a 10 gal tank, you would probably have 2 do 50% water changes every day to keep the nitrates below 20 ppm.

by your pet stores logic I could keep a 8' tarpon in a 100 gal tank, think about it. size constraints are not the only factor, think about water volume and the amount of toxins they can contain before they get to harmful levels.

you could keep darters, and some types of shiners and killie fish in a 10 gal, but you must stay up on your water changes, 10 gal of water can go down hill very fast.

my 2 cents

[joephys]

The fish will be stunted long before they ever have a chance to get that big. You need to keep fish in the proper size tank for an adult from day you get them.

[sthawke1]

I've kept 2 blue gills in a 75 and they were great... except as everyone else says, they are not good tank mates w/ other fish besides themselves

[hmt321]

I've kept 2 blue gills in a 75 and they were great... except as everyone else says, they are not good tank mates w/ other fish besides themselves

try them with some adult golden shiners, a school of 6-8 golden shiners all over 2" can make a great "clean up" crew (BG are at times messy eaters) best of all you can probably pick them up for $2 a dozen at a bait shop (quarantine them for like a month)
also a brushy nose pleco can often be an ok tank mate but they are poop machines so watch your water quality.

large mouth bass, warmouth, and green sunfish will hardly tolerate anything else in the tank with them, if they wont fit in their mouth they will harass it to death.

if you could not tell native north American fish are my personal favorite

[Dangerdoll]

small tank = 10 gallon, people....