Waiting for them to die??

[peter hillman]

When I first came here I wasn't sure of the species I had in my pond, sure I knew what type of fish they were but not the exact specie. However Mmathis helped me to know they were Green Sunfish! The sad part is their life expectancy is 6-8 years in the wild. I've had these fish for at least 8yrs now, so I'm kinda expecting a mortality at some point. Their lifespan in the pond may be increased due to the lack of predators and the increased vitamins and nutrition they get from supplemental pellet foods. Sometimes I look for the body of one of my adults to be dead on the surface and would accept the fact it was time for them to go, on the bright side, last year they reproduced and I have fresh young Sunfish to replace any oldtimers that have outlived a long prosperous life in my care.

 

[cas]

Do you just have sunfish in your pond? And how did you decide to add them to the pond?

 

[JBtheExplorer]

I didn't realize you had sunfish. Very cool!
I've always wondered how it would be to have a pond with native fish. If I ever chose to go that route, it would have to be Pumpkinseed fish.

 

[peter hillman]

Do you just have sunfish in your pond? And how did you decide to add them to the pond?

I used to have lovely pond comets that I enjoyed very much, one night they fell prey to a raccoon, every one of them. The pond was fishless for short time, but then, a place where we went camping had a small lake, small dam, with a small creek flowing from it. The kids came up with a jar of these fish no more than a couple inches long and asked if we could keep them. And that's how they ended up in my pond. A pic of them young and old...

 

[cas]

Cool!

 

[addy1]

Really neat!

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Maybe not so cool or neat if you want to have other fish in the pond. Some species of sunfish (including green sunfish) can be very aggressive and will literally harass and bite other fish to death.
I once had one perch (same family as sunfish) in my old pond that started out as a tiny fry about a 1/2" long. He quickly outgrew most of the goldfish and started attacking the smaller ones to the point that their fins were always torn apart and they spent most of their time hiding. That one fish was able to upset the tranquility of the entire pond.
Had the same sort of situation years ago when I tried to stock a 100 gallon cold water aquarium trout and other diverse native species. It didn't work because the trout are so territorial they constantly harassed the other fish in the tank. The other fish hid all the time and consequently they never got to eat and you rarely saw them. Certainly doesn't mean you can't keep green sunfish, but you just have to understand that in the confines of a small tank or pond you may be limited to just one species, of a specific size.

 

[Richardspond]

Those are good for taking out an over crowded mosquito fish population, but they are kinda mean and teritorial from what i read