Pygmy sunfish breeding

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Plecolover18

Aquarium Advice Freak
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Jul 14, 2013
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Hershey,PA
As you guys probably know I'm breeding lots of fish right now, but after I came home from the aquarium club I won a proven pair of gulf coast pygmy sunfish wild caught one the Florida panhandle I set up the five gallon that the pair live in now by themselves put in some java fern for the eggs. I started feeding them frozen brine shrimp, the female took one and held it in her mouth for a couple minutes till releasing it and the female didn't care. Is there any other foods that I could fit in the fishes mouth and help with breeding, I was thinking ants there small and there native to where there native to, also is there any tricks to get them to spawn I really couldn't find any info on the web

Thanks :)
 
That's a cool little fish ;) I hope you have some good luck breeding them. As for feeding them, try to use a knife and shave the frozen brine so that the pieces are smaller. They may eat them better. You can also do that with frozen worms as well. Being that they come from very dark waters, they are most likely eating worms or misquitoe larvae and possibly live daphnia. You may also want to try hatching out brine shrimp and feeding them some of the newly hatched shrimp as well. Maybe even the decapsulated brine shrimp? (Just trying to think of foods for fish fry that might help ;) )

Hope this helps. Keep us posted on your progress.
 
That's a cool little fish ;) I hope you have some good luck breeding them. As for feeding them, try to use a knife and shave the frozen brine so that the pieces are smaller. They may eat them better. You can also do that with frozen worms as well. Being that they come from very dark waters, they are most likely eating worms or misquitoe larvae and possibly live daphnia. You may also want to try hatching out brine shrimp and feeding them some of the newly hatched shrimp as well. Maybe even the decapsulated brine shrimp? (Just trying to think of foods for fish fry that might help ;) )

Hope this helps. Keep us posted on your progress.

I'll try shaving the brine shrimp, I won't be able to get to a store that sells mosquito larvae so could I try chopped earthworms?
 
I'll try shaving the brine shrimp, I won't be able to get to a store that sells mosquito larvae so could I try chopped earthworms?

You can try. Just might be a little tough to chew?(I'm not a worm conaseur. :DLOL)
When you can get to a store, you might want to try freeze dried Tubifex worms. I crumble the cubes with my fingers so the pieces can be as small as you want them to be. Only feed a small amount per feeding. My breeder Angels get approx 1/4 of 1 cube of worms as a feeding so adjust accordingly.(y)
 
You can try. Just might be a little tough to chew?(I'm not a worm conaseur. :DLOL)
When you can get to a store, you might want to try freeze dried Tubifex worms. I crumble the cubes with my fingers so the pieces can be as small as you want them to be. Only feed a small amount per feeding. My breeder Angels get approx 1/4 of 1 cube of worms as a feeding so adjust accordingly.(y)

You told me to keep you up with my progress so here i go.I tried blood worms today (natural food) and the female ate a small piece as other then that no progress on them eating the BW I'm going to try to defrost the BW and pick out all the small ones with a spoon or with my bare hands tomorrow if that doesn't work ill try dalphina (not sure if the lfs Carries it live) or baby brine shrimp.
 
With all of the pygmy sunfish I've kept, I've only had luck using live goods like brine shrimp, mosquito larvae, and thawed frozen bloodworms.

No luck with brine shrimp for me at this stage it's to big there about the size of a child's thumb nail I'm going to try to crumble the thawed BW with my bare hands and if they don't eat that ill want to try Dalphina
 
The one good thing about frozen foods is that you can shave them much easlier than trying to chop live or defrosted foods. Hopefully it won't come to that. I know there are places that sell daphnia culturing kits if it comes to that so you can hatch out your own. ( My neighbor does this to start his Koi fry on larger foods.) There also is another FW shrimp called a fairy shrimp which is a little larger than brine shrimp in case non of the other foods work. I'd think their nupluii would be larger than BBS and smaller than adult brine shrimp.
Hope this helps
 
I've kept a few dozen different species of pygmy sunfish and as long as they aren't absurdly tiny sized they should be able to take down full sized thawed bloodworms just fine. My adults would even eat freshly hatched BBS, so that's another relatively easy option. Here's a video.

pygmy sunfish.wmv - YouTube

Yeah I'm pretty sure I got it under control if I have another question ill ask you thanks
 
my lfs that i workk at is ordering me a few different varities of thease to try to breed. also a few different colors of rams
 
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