NANFA-- Re: nanfa

njz (njz_at_clevelandmetroparks.com)
Sat, 21 Feb 2004 09:26:35 -0500

Hi again Rolandas. Two things, first I am not Johan. Jonah's aquarium is a
company here in Ohio which sells various types of fish and aquarium supplies.
Mark is the person's name who owns the business and is very knowledgable about
native fish and it is a large part of his business. I will forward your email
to him and hopefully he can respond to you. Secondly, I will forward your
info to our list again and see if anyone else would like to comment. My
opinion however, is that you should be able to see differences in your fish at
this size. Longears as a rule don't get as large as other sunfish so you
should be able to see if the fish are mature or not. Males tend to be a bit
more colorful than the females and they also have a longer "ear" on their gill
operculum. As far as water chemistries, they are not picky. I have never
tried to breed them so I am not sure if they would require something special
for breeding. Although I doubt that this would be the case, others might have
something to say. SInce your fish don't have much color, you may have all
females, although even females are nicely colored, just not as intense.
Feeding should be very easy, but if you want to get the best out of your fish,
I would try large amounts of live food. Earthworms, small fish, shrimp, etc.
Whatever you can get hold of either from your local streams or from a store in
your area. You can certainly supplement with dry flakes or pellets. Other
than that, they are pretty easy. I will send this out for other comments.
Good luck.

Nick Zarlinga

"If we ignore nature.....maybe it'll go away."

----- Original Message -----
From: rolandas
To: Nicholas J Zarlinga
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 4:49 AM
Subject: Re: nanfa

Hello Jonah,

Hello Nick Zarlinga,

I am writing to but with the other reason. In your signature I saw that you
are the aquarium biologist, so maybe you could help me with few questions. I
live in Lithuania (Europe). I was in the States in
this fall and take with me three longear sunfishes to Lithuania. They are in
my fish
tank now. I don't know how to recognize the males from females. Maybe you
have some information about these differences? My fish is about 10-12 cm
length (3,9 - 4,7 inch). They are beautiful :) Any information about
keeping these fish in fish tank would be very welcome. My fish were caught

in the Rock Creek Kankakee County, Illinois, at the Kankakee River state
park.

They are very similar to the sunfish photo
published on your site: http://jonahsaquarium.com/piclmegalotiscrail01.htm
.
They like twins, except one thing - my sunfishes became poor in color. And
the grey strips became very clear. But
they were very colorful. I'm started thinking maybe they require special
water conditions? Maybe you know that water Ph (and other factors) is best
for them? The creek where they lived before is very rocky and maybe the
water was enriched with minerals in this creek? Do I need to place in the
fish tank special rocks or something else? Maybe they need special food?
What would be your recommendations?
As for the gender - these three sunfishes are similar size. I don't know
how to recognize the males from females. Maybe you
have some information about these differences? My fish is about 10-12 cm
length (3,9 - 4,7 inch). The one is
little smaller then other, and the other two are aggressive. It's hard to
say which male and which is female. Maybe all of them are the same gender.
I
tried to find any information how recognizes the female and male of
longears
but I didn't find. If you know any links to such sites, please let me know.
I know that it's a lot of questions to you, but these fishes are important
to me and please help me if you can.

As for the mail address ocarroll_at_acm.org - I receive the message:

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address failed:
ocarroll_at_gol.com

Thanks,

Rolandas

Nick Zarlinga
Aquarium Biologist
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo
216.661.6500 ext 4485
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