Sunfish?

[Beaker]

Sunny
[img:e97a7a8a5a]http://ourworld.cs.com/Azkornbread/Sunny.jpg[/img:e97a7a8a5a]

I'm pretty sure this is a Sunfish, but not sure which kind. I got him a few months ago at Petco. They had no clue what it was when I asked and after some research they concluded he was probably a Green Terror, lol! I knew he wasn't, but took him anyway. If indeed a sunfish, I think their illegal to have here in AZ because they're a game fish, so don't tell!!

[SGypsyMermaid]

i have one, too! he was in a tank with some juvenile lake cichlids. i was pretty sure he wasn't one, but i bought him anyway. he's living in my brackish tank and getting fat! i kinda thought he might be a sunfish. he's actually quite beautiful--he's a pearly gray color with turquoise markings in the facial area, silver flecks all over his body, and the black dot on the gill cover is edged in a kind of peachy gold.

[Beaker]

The pic doesn't show it too well, but he has a lot of those same features. He also has almost rainbow colored pelvic fins too. He's really cool even though he kinda nibles at me when I'm trying to feed my tire tack eel.

[SGypsyMermaid]

mine has no color in the pelvic fins--maybe he's a she! :shock:

[Chet]

A good resource for identifying North American fish is www.nativefish.org

They have a gallery with pics of most species of native North American fish, including numerous different species of perch. Check it out. I'm sure you can determine what particular species each of you have.

[SGypsyMermaid]

thanks for the link, chet.

[jnorris]

He is in the Bass Family...lol

I bet he makes a big mess of your tank too!

[SGypsyMermaid]

no--i don't see that he makes any big mess--maybe he's not big enough to do that, yet. he's about 4 inches, nose to tail. and quite fat!

[Chet]

Hey, did either of you ever figure out what species of perch you are keeping? I'm quite curious as there are several species that I wouldn't mind having in a tank myself. Some will max out at 3", others can get as big as 12". Having a sunfish shouldn't create any legal problems for you, since you can buy them and several other species of fish to stock private ponds. As long as the fish was purchased by you, and not removed from a public lake, you should be in the clear. Of course, AZ laws may differ from the laws of other states.

[Beaker]

I'm pretty sure I nailed him down to a Green Sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus). So far he has about the same behavior as his SA tankmates, but he's a lot quicker and always the first to grab food. Thanks for that site link, that helped a lot.

[SGypsyMermaid]

i bookmarked the site--but i haven't checked out the id on mine, yet.

[SGypsyMermaid]

i think that mine is a longear sunfish(Lepomis megalotis).