# Pygmy Banded Sunfish?



## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Howdy Ya'll!

In the past I have kept a few pygmy bandeds here and there and REALLY enjoyed them, but have always had them in a tank where there was no chance for breeding. There were always egg predators of one type or another; it doesn't take much when yuor fish are that small - less than an inch at the biggest...and at the moment I'm pygmy-less.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone has ever kept and maybe even bred these fish before. I have purposefully planted various critters (ostrocods, springtails, daphnia...i really don't know what all they are, just little flippy-things in the crustacean crew that are hard to see) for a food source in my Crypt. willisii x lucens-o-tope and eventually want to make it a species tank for the pygmy banded and am curious about my chances of breeding these tiny gems in the 10 gallon office tank. I've done this before with this species, but also had little community fish that wuold have made breeding impossible.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Well, I can see a few folks have viewed without replying, so I am going to assume there is not a whole lot of experience in keeping pygmy banded sunfish. Soooooooooooooo, I guess I'll roll with the original plan and just post my experiences.

To start, here is a little info about these little fellas. Their proper name (taxonomy) is Elassoma zonatum, and they are between .5-1" long, even as adults. They enjoy heavily plants tanks IME, and prefer a living food source. IME, wild-caught specimens will not accept prepared foods, but I am considering breeding and hope to find out if the offspring are more domesticated in conditioning. While generally olive/dark brown drab, they have irridescent highlights as well. There are many pics online, but I will post my own here eventually. They are rather hardy considering their size, and I have seen them in their natural habitat in water temps and parameters from one extreme to the other, though I suspect they prefer the slightly acidic conditions of small pools loaded with organics.

Davemonkey also has some experience in keeping this species.

It will be a little while until I set them up in the proposed tank, as I am still culturing my long-term food source. I am trying to plan for the foods needs of about 7 adults.


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## amphirion (Nov 13, 2008)

i've had pygmy sunfish, but along the lines of elassoma okeefenokee. the pair lived in a 2.5 gallon tank, their tankmates were 13 Boraras merah and about 10 cherry shrimp. they need fine, bushy plants to be encouraged to spawn. mine nested out in some rotala wallichii. parents do not eat the babies, neither did my other fish bother them. the babies can be weaned to dry/flake foods...which is a blessing considering how nit-picky the adults are with their live food!

having a very strong microinvertebrate population base is essential for the long term keep of these species. i initially bought a freshwater plankton mix, and dumped it into the tank a month in advance before introducing the sunfish into the tank.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Pretty cool; were these wild caught or purchased?

My goal eventually (it's going to be a while since I've still got 3-5 months before we decide were we're settling down to) is to convert my 20 gallon Wetland-n-a-Box to a 55 gallon tank, and used all of the tons of Fissidens I've been growing in my 10 gallon as the fore and mid ground of the 20 with some Ludwigia brevipes as the background (and a few other plants here and there; maybe some plants out of Crypt. willisii x lucens nursery). I am work SLOWLY on the invert population. I have some good critters started, but I'm also babysitting a young pair of Apisto. macmasteri until mid-November and they are keeping the population pretty much tanked.

I have not heard about freshwater plankton mixes; any info you can toss me?


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## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

amphirion said:


> having a very strong microinvertebrate population base is essential for the long term keep of these species.


That's my experience as well. I know of 2 guys in the Houston area that kept the Pygmy Banded in high-tech set-ups and they were not successful. My thoughts are that the micro-bugs don't flourish in the typical planted tank unless they are introduced in large numbers. In my NPT, the micro-inverts were well-established and the natural environment encouraged their growth (soil, wild-collected plants with eggs/etc... on them, and so on).

Something to keep in mind is that adults will eat more than you think they can of the live foods. 3 days after putting 3 fish into a 3 gal tank (that was FULL, I mean FUUUULLLLLLL of Ostracods), I am now worried that they may soon eat themselves out of a food source.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Goodness, in that case I will make sure to set the 20 up WELL in advance and use a lot of taller plants in the back for habitat. Maybe 5 adults in the tank will be maintainable.


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## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

It also probably depends on the plants you have. If you have mostly moss, the bugs can hide better and evade predation...


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## amphirion (Nov 13, 2008)

got my fish, and my plankton mix from here: 
plankton mix pretty much consists of rotifers, daphnia, scuds, and more micro inverts than i can even name.

fish: http://www.aquaculturestore.com/fwverts.html (elas4)
plankton: http://www.aquaculturestore.com/fwinverts.html (plankmix1)

and yeah, agree with dave, my 2.5 was heavily, HEAVILY planted. plus, these pygmies do well in heavily planted tanks.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Wow, thanks for the links; those are great! After we find out where we're going toen up in the next few months I will definitely be ordering one of the plankton variety packs. With my organic substrate and the food I toss in for the RCS there should be plenty of nutrients to support some good repro in the Fissidens forest.


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## potatoes (Jun 25, 2010)

I was reading a thread about having a blackworm population in your substrate, and i thought it may be an idea you may want to consider. they arnt micoinvertebrates, but its invert and a nice supplement of live food. I think they also help with decompostion, which may help if you are going for a low tech soil substrate and trying to get mini ecosystem with microinverts. just an idea


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Thanks potatoes; I've always wanted to try blackworms, but can only find them online in such large quantities that it's not worth the trouble (Melinda will not allow a worm farm in the fridge or anywhere else for that matter). There's a local LFS that used to carry them but stopped a couple of years ago.


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## Noto (Oct 26, 2009)

I kept some _E. zonatum _years ago, though like yours they were in a community tank and never successfully bred. There are several folks who keep them on the NANFA forum, you might want to check over there. You could try keeping cherry shrimp or similar with them- the shrimp fry are snack-size for adult pygmies. I don't think cherries would try to eat pygmy fry, but I'm not 100% certain of that.

Pygmies love mosquito larvae. A bucket set outside with some water and dead leaves will provide plenty through the warmer parts of the year. You can raise microcrustaceans in the same buckets. I've done this the last few years and never had any issues with predatory insects colonizing the buckets; even if they do, it's not hard to pick them out. Harvesting every two or three days will prevent adults from emerging; just pour the whole bucket contents through a net into another bucket to make sure you get them all.

My guys also ate frozen bloodworms. I offered other frozen foods, but that was the only one they liked.


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