NANFA-L-- precocious Green Sunfish

George W Corben (gwcorben-in-juno.com)
Sat, 26 Nov 2005 21:13:29 -0600

I brought 5 young sunfish from my water garden inside to spend
the winter in a 29 gal in my garden room. They were all 1 3/4 to 2 inch
size when placed in the aquarium 6 weeks ago but have been growing
rapidly on a diet of Omega flake food augmented with freeze dried
plankton (small krill) and frozen bloodworms. One fish was marked
differently than the other 4 and was much slower in adjusting to aquarium
life. It was still shy after 2 weeks and only recently began coming to
the front of the glass with the others-in-feeding time (AM). The other 4
only took a day to settle in and eagerly eat anything and everything I
give them. The 4 Greenies are growing rapidly. the largest now 3 1/4", 2
at 3" and 1 about 2 3/4". The Odd
fish was the 2nd largest of the batch but is equal in size now to the
smallest Green. I now suspect that the odd fish is an Orange spotted fish
from Luke McClurg, although I thought the fish I got from him last August
were all larger than this one.

Thanksgiving morning I noticed that an Amazon Sword appeared to
have a large amount of gravel moved away from its base. Even moreso
yesterday. Today I observed the largest Greenie acting for all the world
like he was on a nest but, he is only 5 months old! I wasn't expecting
this type of behavior until next year. I can't see anything that could be
eggs and doubt that the other fish could provide eggs-in-this age.
These Greens would have come from the 2nd ( 6/19/05) or 3rd (7/1/05)
Green nests in my watergarden this past summer.

Does anyone know if it is normal for Sunfish this age to act this
way?

George in Kansas
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