looking to you all for help with the ID of this little beauty that I took last night. still trying for a crappie for the tank. yesterday from this same pond I took crappie, lmb, pumkinseed, yellow perch, and this lovely sunfish that i can't recognize. i wondered if it's a female pumpkinseed, don't know if they have different colors/markings from the males. also wondered if it's a spawning color thing. doesn't have the vertical bars i see on bluegills. cool looking fish. could it be a green sunfish? i'll include a shot of a pumkinseed from the same pond for comparison. thanks, dave
that is a Green Sunfish. i can catch literally over 100 panfish a day when i go for em and ive only seen a handful of these, nice catch!
a nice addition! i'd like to see this tank when your fish line-up is complete. im very interested in doing the same thing
One thing I wish I did during my fish hobbyist days was to have a native species tank. I've bred fish from all over the world, set up biotopes- all that stuff- but I never once had fish from my 'own back yard'. I've heard of people setting up BIG bluegill tanks and regulating the temperature to simulate the seasons/year and they got to witness spawning and fry rearing.
I always figgured to breed guppies in a 200 gal tank till it was full and then drop a 2,3,4" bass in there. maybe this year.
this morning both the greenie and the pumpkinseed showed up with vertical bars showing through on their flanks. i wonder if this is because they have now been a few days in a bright clear surroundings (the tank and a white wall behind it), or if it is a seasonal/spawning thing? Do colors change for spawning time regardless of whether spawning is possible? I'm inclined to think it's just an adjustment to their surroundings, since, though the perspective of this shot doesn't show it, but pumkinseed is about a third of the size of the greenie and i don't think it could be sexually mature yet. but i don't know.
If you are trying to raise them in a tank, get the smallest specimens that you can. they are beautiful fish and will tollerate most any temperature or oxygen conditions. They also are agressive feeders and will eat everything in sight. Try holding some tubeflex worms a couple of inches above the water, they will almost take your hand off!
