My Sunfish Preparing to Spawn!

[mdwalt]

I've had a group of Longear Sunfish (Lepomis megalotis) for a year and a half and they are finally displaying spawning behavior.

The males are in full breeding colors and look magnificent. The females are getting to look gravid.

The dominant male is being very territorial and has begun building a nest. He's miving rocks, fanning the area with his tail and chasing off all who venture near. It's awesome to see!

I will continue to monitor them in hopes of seeing the actual act as it occurs.

Here's a pic of the big guy (and gals) in action.

[newb]

thats awesome man...did you catch them yourself???

[cichlid1409]

nice fish! good luck and keep us posted.

[wesleydnunder]

He's absolutely beautiful. Mean little suckers when they're spawning. I kept the green sunfish for a while.

Mark

[smk]

beautiful keep ys posted on the progress
scott

[mdwalt]

I went on a collection trip to Lake Athens, TX in Sept '08. We caught many of these and other types of fish by dip netting right off the bank.

Not much to update yet. Every thing's still status quo. This is my first exposure to this behavior. I wonder how long it will take for the female to lay her eggs? The males are definitely ready!

[decal]

Beautiful longears, I'm amazed they get that lovely in Texas. We don't need no stinkin' exotics...

[Mzungu]

Wow, they're gorgeous! And MAN, those females (or at least the one in front) sure look ready!

More pictures, please. :biggrin: Good luck with them, keep us posted.

[mark razmandi]

more pics, gorgeous fish. ive always been interested in keeping a native tank

[mdwalt]

I was sitting at home Easter evening watching the end of the Shell Houston Open, my wife was in the kitchen cooking dinner, my son was taking a nap - a typical Sunday evening. I glanced over at my Native tank and saw two of my Longears swimming in circles in a corner of the tank. I walked over to have a look and OMG! they're spawning! I ran and grabbed my phone and turned on the camcorder. Here are some screencaps from my phone video (hence the poor quality). It was amazing to watch these two fish go through their motions. The female was distributing eggs every direction and the male was right there by her side the whole time - periodically gulping stray floater eggs and darting after any other fish that dared to come within 1 foot.


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[smk]

nice if you raise some i'd like some

[cichlid1409]

awesome! nice pics.

[mdwalt]

After waiting the 36 hour hatch period, I began searching the bottom of my tank for some indication of fry. Nothing. So I decided to gently siphon the nest to see if I could retrieve anything. I filled a 5 gal bucket with water containing whatever was in the rocks. I looked through the particles in the bucket using a bright flashlight. Nothing. About to give up in despair, my foot tapped the bucket and I saw something dart across the bottom. Aha! Fry! Well not exactly fry at this stage, more like pro-larvae. I grabbed a turkey baster and continued tapping and eventually extracted 7 fish from the bucket. They're now in a small grow out container for now. I'm sure there has to be many more still in the tank. I plan to let them fend for themselves and see what happens. I will post a pic of one of the little guys soon.

[Mzungu]

Very cool! I somehow missed your update from Easter, but that's awesome, too! Thanks for posting the pics, and I look forward to hearing how the fry do in the days to come!

[mdwalt]

Here's a pic of one of the little guys. They are about half the size of a grain of rice. Verrry small!

pro-larvae2.JPG