Native fish (particularly Orange Spotted Sunfish), need advice

K

knifemaker

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Dec 17, 2005
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Hi guys. I have been keeping gouramis and such for a while and want to get into native fish. I am particularly interested in Orange Spotted Sunfish. Anyone here have those? Any particular recomendations on how to keep them?

I checked with my local F&G and they said should be ok since they aren't an Alaskan fish.

Would like to hear about tank sizes, what you are feeding, what their personalities are like and anything else you would like to share.

I am also interested to hear about any other native fish you might be keeping.
Thanks,
Knifemaker
 
Sunfish in general are some of the nastiest tempered fish you can find. Plan on a LARGE tank, at least a 75 for 3, and bigger to keep more. They are VERY territorial, and will beat up smaller members of the community, so try to get fish that are close in size. Tall plants will help, and you'll want to provide lots of other cover. Feeding--prepared frozen foods should be fine, though you can supplement with blood worms, or live insect larvae as they are available. I wouldn't plan on keeping anything else with them, other than maybe a smaller bullhead--it's thick slime will help protect it, and it will help clean up some (though bullheads also can be messy).
 
native fish

I caught a warmouth a couple years ago and kept it in my 55gal for a year and then released it. The warmouth is in the sunfish family and looks similiar to a smallmaouth bass. the warmouth is much smaller than a bass only getting to about 8". it had purplish wavey coloring and surprisingly a good aquarium fish. i fed it crickets and earthworms and it ate the other stuff too like flakes and pellets.
 
Thanks for the info. Could you tell me more about the green sunfish. I have never seen one before. Unfortunately can't catch any sunfish here in Alaska so I am going to find seome place where I can buy whatever fish I settle on.
Thanks,
Josh
 
Green sunfish are very colorfull they range from dark green to black with beautifull highlights and alot of times orange or white edges to theif fins. They are very agressive tanking on prey half their size they also have huge mouths there alot like a cold water jack dempsey.
 
Just make sure that you don't need a permit to own a green sunfish. They may not be native to alaska but they are still considered to be a game fish.
 
I have talked with different people from AK F&G several times. Basically they said that if it is not native to AK and you can buy it from a store you can keep it legaly.
http://jonahsaquarium.com/fishlist.htm
This seems to be the best place I have found to get Native fishes for me. Unfortunately shipping to AK is extravagent. I am talking with my LFS and a couple of them say they might be able to get them towards April.
I have a 20 high so orange spotted are particularly interesting since they are one of the smaller sunfish and I should actually be able to keep a pair of them comfortably in the tank I have.
 
A 20gal is too small mabey they will fit in there till they reach 4" but that will only take a matter of 4 or 5 months max I would suggest a bigger tank
 
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