# blue gills



## piranhaperson (Aug 29, 2003)

i went and caught some bluegills from a nearby lake a while ago and these things are wickeder than any piranhas ive kept does anybody no any sites with information about blue gills or sunfish


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## piranha45 (Apr 8, 2003)

bluegill and many other sunfish in general are indeed quite aggressive as far as fish standards go. Sunfish are pretty much North American versions of Cichlids.

and yeah compared to your skittish piranha I'm not the least bit surprised your happy with them :laugh:


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## Polypterus (May 4, 2003)

I don't think I'd call them aggressive just very oppertunistic,

Look here for articles on Sunfishes
Native fish conservency
North american Native fishes association


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

I had a bluegill living with my reds....He was a pretty cool fish but aggressive....not really.


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## v4p0r (Aug 14, 2003)

the most aggressive acting native fish ive kept has to be a smallmouth bass. Plus they are just plain badass looking with their orange eyes.


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## wrathofgeo (Aug 23, 2003)

damn perches bossed my chiclids around all day when i got some


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2003)

grosse gurke said:


> I had a bluegill living with my reds....He was a pretty cool fish but aggressive....not really.


 i also had one but when i put it together with my Ps of the same size the Ps ate it.


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## Ms_Nattereri (Jan 11, 2003)

Blue gills, agressive?! Youve got to be kidding me right?!


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## thePACK (Jan 3, 2003)

Ms_Nattereri said:


> Blue gills, agressive?! Youve got to be kidding me right?!


 believe or not ....yes they are mean little bastards


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## scrapedogg (Apr 28, 2003)

I'll let the picture do the talking


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## Ms_Nattereri (Jan 11, 2003)

thePACK said:


> Ms_Nattereri said:
> 
> 
> > Blue gills, agressive?! Youve got to be kidding me right?!
> ...


 All the ones Ive ever caught werent. However, they did hurt to hold them...







You can catch a lot of them when you use string cheese as bait.


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## Polypterus (May 4, 2003)

They are not Agressive they are Opertunistic, sunfishes
get a bit ballsy around food, they have territorial instincts around
Breeding but rarly fight to defend against a true predatory species,
They prefer to flee and fast. They though in captivity will not hesitate 
to take the food right out of an another fishes mouth. My green
tries to take food out of the mouth of My Gars, even though the gar could easily
swallow him, Gar now just lets him take a bit, He then ignores the rest,
and the gar ignores him, it's a weird symbiotic relationship.

Aggressive is an overstatement when it comes to sunfishes,
They are just Damn good roaches.


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## SiameseDream (Sep 7, 2003)

When I was a child we had some bluegill in a 55gallon tank and my dad put a pictus catfish in the tank andone bluegill swallowed it and half of the catfish was sticking out of it mouth for like 4 or 5 days


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## PsychoLes (Jan 8, 2004)

> I'll let the picture do the talking


I can't really make out the picture? What is it? There's a local forest preserve that usally is packed with Blue gills Usally smaller, I've been thinking about using them to feed my p's! Any ideas???


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## piranha45 (Apr 8, 2003)

there's a number of people on various forums I visit that claim their green sunfish and bluegills and smallmouth basses often end up taking over the tank from established large mean CA cichlids.  Of course there's stories in the opposite direction as well. Based on these accounts I'm led to believe that sunfish are indeed quite territorial, right in the range of cichlids.


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## piranha45 (Apr 8, 2003)

oh god this topic is 6 months old


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## imachode (Jun 3, 2003)

piranha45 said:


> oh god this topic is 6 months old


 haha. that's freaking hilarious.

anyone have experience keeping these? what kind of water parameters are we looking at? i've got an empty 25 gal... just kicking around ideas.


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## sweet lu (Oct 3, 2003)

like warm water and water qulity is the same as all tanks but i know that 
they arent that picky cause there was tons of blue gills swimming around a 
boat ramp near my house and that water was nasty


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## Polypterus (May 4, 2003)

imachode said:


> piranha45 said:
> 
> 
> > oh god this topic is 6 months old
> ...


 kept many of them, (Sunfishes) very easy to keep, 
water quality is not an issue for most species

they are not aggressive but definitly opertunistic as has already been stated,

very interesting fish, and well worth your time.


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## con man (Mar 7, 2004)

sunfish and bluegills r extremely agresive when it comes to scavenging for food and fighting over it and yes they r omnivorous and ive seena large sunfish eat a bass a 1/4 of his/her size quite ammuzing and large fish when kept in aquarium one year in the aquarium well fed will bring ur bluegill from 2 inches to 8 inches mine maxed out at 10 in then he died from asoem type of internal parasite (wasnt gonna waste my money for a fish i could go catch teh next day on medication)


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## imachode (Jun 3, 2003)

to revive this dated topic,

what's the longest anyone's kept one of these... and from what size? anyone have experience with space requirements or tankmates?


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## acestro (Jul 7, 2003)

> oh god this topic is 6 months old


I guess digging up old topics is a new fad :rock:


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## acestro (Jul 7, 2003)

That I will stop!









Start a new thread with your question imachode, it'll get more attention anyway.


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