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A few days ago I found another baby sunfish in a feeder minnow tank to rescue. There were actually a few of them in there, but I only had one spare 10 gallon tank laying around (and sunfish generally don't take kindly to other sunfish, or any other fish for that matter).

He quickly got used to his new tank, and now he will eat anything I give him and follow my finger around. After I bought the fish, he was pale and relatively transparent... But last night when I went to go feed him, I noticed that the back half of his body was very darkly-colored, while the front was still colorless.

I've never seen coloration like this on a fish before, especially one that is apparently healthy and not stressed out. In the feeder tank, the sunfish was completely pale, and I'm not sure how long he was in there (probably no more than a few days). Is the dark coloration in the back his normal coloring developing?

Also, I have no idea what kind of sunfish he is. They all look similar at this age, but I'm kind of hoping he's another Green Sunfish because they tend to stay the smallest. I don't see the characteristic black blotch on the rear of the dorsal fin, though.

Is anyone here good at identifying young sunfish? I'm not sure if the feeders were raised in California or Florida. Here is a link to a video of the fish (it's a lot easier to see if you click "watch in high quality"):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmXSlRNnPFI

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

hi natalie... I was wondering what part of CA you are in becaue I have been looking for a sunfish, and I saw you had some videos titled san dimas which is a city right next to me...

Sorry I can help in the department of the sunfish naming though...

\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"

I'm in the Bay Area, but many species of sunfish have been introduced all over California, so you can catch them in just about any reservoir or other fishing location. Also, next time you are in your LFS, take a good, long look through all the feeder tanks (goldfish, shrimp, minnows, etc.) and chances are you'll find a sunfish in with them pretty quickly.

When I worked at fish stores, searching through every bag of fish for contaminants was probably my favorite part of the job... In the feeder shipments you can find some nice North American natives like sunfish and killies, and in wild-caught imports you can sometimes find rare stuff from around the world.

The "San Dimas" in that movie title is just a reference to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, even though my movie has nothing to do with it.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

I don't know if it is possible to tell at this point the species of the fish.

Also, I don't know of any lepomis native to california.

haha i kinda figured it was a reference to Bill and Ted'd Excellent Adventure... I have frewquented their "Land of tyhe Circle K, which is actually not in San DImas, but what ever! Yeah I will do that, I have never taken the time to look for other species in the feeder tanks.. maybe i will do that the next time if i remeber!!!

\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"

Also, I don't know of any lepomis native to california.

There aren't any. The only centrarchid native to California is Archoplites interruptus.

The color of my fish still hasn't changed... I would think if the dark areas were its "normal" coloration coming back, it would have covered more of the fish now.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

haha i kinda figured it was a reference to Bill and Ted'd Excellent Adventure... I have frewquented their "Land of tyhe Circle K, which is actually not in San DImas, but what ever! Yeah I will do that, I have never taken the time to look for other species in the feeder tanks.. maybe i will do that the next time if i remeber!!!

It's definitely worth a try. Just make sure you have a tank large enough for the sunfish once it gets older... I think I'm going to have to give away the one I found once it gets too big for a tank of 30 gallons or so.

Feeder Ghost Shrimp are the best place to look for contaminants, because I think they are almost always from Florida... You can find Bluefin Killies, Least Killies (actually a livebearer), sunfish, catfish, and a few types of crawfish in with them too.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Coloration in sunfishes, as in many others is environmentally variable. Young fish can get rather dark in tanks with lush vegetative growth and subdued lighting.

hah yeah i think the LFS manager sorts the fish out from the shrimpo as they arent sold as feeders... I have gotten a few endlers hybrids and mosiquito fish with my feeder guppy purchases though... some kilies would be a nice addition though! i should go scout them out when i get some time!

\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"

Coloration in sunfishes, as in many others is environmentally variable. Young fish can get rather dark in tanks with lush vegetative growth and subdued lighting.

The tank doesn't have too much in it, just some rock caves and a few Anubias. The fish doesn't really spend any time hiding, so I haven't added any more furnishings. I can try it though and see if the fish's color changes.

I made another video of the fish tonight... The color seems to have changed a bit and it is much darker on its right side than its left: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlUbWE3B5as

hah yeah i think the LFS manager sorts the fish out from the shrimpo as they arent sold as feeders... I have gotten a few endlers hybrids and mosiquito fish with my feeder guppy purchases though... some kilies would be a nice addition though! i should go scout them out when i get some time!

Awesome. Whenever I see mosquitofish in with feeders I buy them to put in my pond. There's a catfish somewhere in there too, though, so I think it eats some of them (but they have more than enough babies to replenish the population). If your LFS gets in fairly large shipments of Ghost Shrimp, as feeders or not, defnitely keep your eye open for any Bluefin Killifish... They're the most common contaminant in with the shrimp, I've found, and are hardy captives.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Looking at that video, my initial guess is that you have a baby Crappie. The trouble is that Pomoxis annulatus, the White Crappie, and Pomoxis nigromaculatus, the Black Crappie, look pretty similar as juveniles, and only really differentiate to any meaningful extent as adults. If your fish IS one of the Crappies, then you're looking at it attaining a length in excess of 50 cm as an adult, so it's going to do a LOT of growing. But then, having seen it feeding in your video clip, this does not surprise me in the least given its colossal appetite!

The July 1977 edition of Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine has an article on these, complete with a nice (albeit monochrome) photo of a juvenile Black Crappie that bears considerable resemblance to your fish. So if you DO have one of the Crappies, the things to bear in mind are:

[1] Apparently they are pretty sensitive to pollutants, and require fairly decent filtration for long term maintenance, which in the case of an adult fish is going to mean power filtration, given that an adult is a voracious predator, has a cavernous mouth (think of a North American version of the Cichlid species Petenia splendida, with its telescopic mouthparts, and you get the idea), and will match its heroic appetite with an equally heroic capacity to foul the water via the other end of its alimentary canal;

[2] Whilst juveniles are pretty feisty fishes, adults are known to be skittish and nervous in the aquarium, at least wild caught ones are. Tank raised ones may be less so. Be prepared for the fish to be spooked easily once sexual maturity kicks in, with the usual unwelcome consequences if it crashes into the sides of the tank;

[3]If their heroic appetites aren't kept satisfied, they are known to be e to developing a strange bacterial infection that manifests itself as sheets of grey slime on the sides. Well fed fishes, on the other hand, are pretty disease resilient.

[4] In the wild, these are ambush predators that lurk in tall reed-like plants. Give the fish a stand of Vallisneria to swim in and out of, and that should make it quite happy. Adults of course require something a bit more substantial than corkscrew Val - you're looking at Vallisneria gigantea and big Amazon Swords.

Juveniles should be fed small morsels at a time, as these fishes have a habit of lunging at large morsels, then spitting most of the morsel out if it's too big, resulting in water fouling. However, this ceases to be much of an issue once the fish is past the 15 cm mark, your problem from that point on will be supplying it with enough meaty food to keep it happy - if you let it, it will sit there all day letting you feed it earthworms like several large Cichlids! Specimens over 25 cm in length need intermittent feeding with live fishes for best condition, and at that size, they're going to need something a good deal more substantial than guppy fry.

You'll soon know if you DO have a Pomoxis species, because they develop a distinctive body outline as they grow, along with tall, showy fins. They actually make fine centrepiece show fishes, and have an elegant, almost ghostly manner of moving once they're approaching adulthood. However, if your fish IS a Pomoxis species, it'll outgrow that aquarium in pretty short order. I'd give it about 6 months maximum before you're looking for considerably bigger quarters. The good news of course being that since it's a US native, it won't need heating for its aquarium, but good quality filtration is a must for long term maintenance, given that it possesses the appetite of at least five other fishes the same size, with the waste management problems this brings in its wake.



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Crappies are awesome fish - they remind me of those big cichlids from Madagascar. If my fish was a crappie, I'd be kind of screwed in the tank department, because I wouldn't have anything nearly large enough to house it. Fortunately, though, I think my fish is a sunfish... If I look hard at the fish, I can make out those little sunfish ears, and the fish's dorsal fin starts before the pelvic fins (on crappies the dorsal fin is way behind the pelvic fins). I'll just have to wait and see, though... It shouldn't take long, the fish is already noticeably larger than when I got it.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Ah, but Pomoxis species undergo considerable morphological changes from juvenile to adult. As a juvenile, the fish is much more reminiscent of a tall finned version of, say, Enneacanthus chaetodon, and the dorsal is much less posteriorly positioned in a juvenile fish. If you see your fish's dorsal start to move backwards in relation to the pelvic fins as it grows older, then you've got a Pomoxis species.

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Do you know of any photos of small crappies? I can't find anything online. The best one I found was this 2-3" fish: http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/Fish/Black%20Crappie/young.jpg

I'm still not convinced it's a crappie... I guess I'll just have to go over to the NANFA forums and see what they think it is.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Just scanned the old TFH photo (even though it's monochrome and over 30 years old) ... here it is ...

Attached Image:


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

It is a sunfish, but you're going to be hard pressed to find a positive ID on such a small specimen. I've had green and pumpkinseed fry come my way, and have spawned bluegill, but I cannot tell one fry from another.

The fish in question is very likely a lepomis spp granted, I don't know what crappie fry look like, but if it's got an ear, it's not a crappie.

The people at the NANFA forums say it's a Green Sunfish and the dark coloration is caused by nerve damage from an injury... The guy who got the fish out of the feeder tank wasn't very careful; he may have pressed the fish against the glass with the net. It appears to be healing fine, though - there is less dark coloration today.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Granted, I don't profess to be a sunfish expert, but it seems to be more of a classical sunfish. Greens, even at a small age, are very elongate, far more so than your fish, at least, imo.

I've kept a couple greens. Their appetite is as large as an Oscar and they are the most agressive native or tropical I've ever had. Unfortunately, I have never seen the fry so I can't help much.

Here is a pic of my last one.

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u305/Krash7172/Aquarium/GreenSunfish.jpg

Notice the ear Cup_of_Lifenoodles referred to.

Here is a blue gill w/ ear visible

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u305/Krash7172/Aquarium/BassandBluegill.jpg

These guys are in my pond now. Too big for my 75

Nice looking fish! It looks happy.

Crappie and sunfish are delicious! Caught some 11" crappies here in MN. =)

Saint Paul, Minnesota USA 20g Freshwater Started June 10th 2008
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