I've had a sunfish for two years now. I caught them from a local pond using my fly rod and a size 20 fly. I was trying to get as little of fish as possible and through back anything bigger than an inch. Well, I only have one left today because the biggest one eventually stressed out the littler ones until they died. I only had them in a 10 gal which I know was a mistake now, but at the time I was going by the 1 inch of fish/gal rule. Anyways, it took them about a week to start eating food (I started on flakes and switched to chiclid pelets), and other than that they are very hardy fish. I didn't have a heater on my tank and let it go cold over the winter, the 65 or so degrees (I didn't really pay attention) it got down to had to be warmer than the frozen over pond.
I would say any fish that lives in a lake/pond would do great in an aquarium. Just make sure you have plenty of room for them to grow and establish territories incase they show agression towards each other.