Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations HBG in 10 gallon aquarium?

I'm getting some replacement fish for my 1/4 acre pond this afternoon, and am considering keeping a few Hybrid Bluegill indoors this winter to observe.

My question is how to do this. What temperature is ideal, what should they be fed, how many 3-4" fish would be appropriate? Will they jump out?

The tank is presently set up with plants, a filter, a heater, flourescent lights. It contains one nile tilapia (about 4").

thanks.

Any temp near room temp, warm enough for the tilapia, will be fine for HBG.

They will eat a vast array of different stuff: virtually any aquarium fish food, commerical fish feed meant for pond use, freshly killed houseflies, earthworms, crickets, mealworms, very small goldfish (fun to watch). IF you feed them a lot, they will grow noticeably (as would the tilapia, I am sure).

3-4 HBG along with the tilapia should give room for some modest growth IMHO. OTOH if fed to satiation, a couple of HBG by themselves would grow large enough in 6 months to tax a 10 gallon tanks capabilities.

I don't think you will have trouble with them jumping out in low numbers. Maybe if they were overcrowded it might result from aggression (???).

Thanks, Theo.

I didn't mention it, but the tilapia IS agressive. It killed two others in a few days when I first started the tank this summer. I read that tilapia would ignore small fish, but this one chewed the fins and killed two little coryadoris cats 2 days after they were introduced last week.

I'm thinking that 4 or 6 bluegill about the same size would make it harder for the tilapia to hurt one. My plan is to remove Tillie if this proves wrong.

I didn't know tilapia were that aggressive toward other fish. This aquarium project sounds like a lot of fun. I always wanted to do that with LMB. I think I would have to go a lot bigger than 10 gal for LMB. I think as soon as my son is old enough to appreciate it I'll catch him a LMB and keep it in an aquarium as a pet.

My only concern is that I dont want him to feel like he's killing the family pet every time we fry up a LMB from the pond.

I had a 10 gallon tank when I was a kid that had whatever I caught out of the golf course ponds near my house. It always had a few 2-4" bluegill, baby bullheads, ghost shrimp, little crawfish, turtles, and a baby LMB every now and then. I traded a neighbor bigger crawfish for guppies to feed the LMB, his oscars loved crawfish. Everything else ate whatever I put in: fishfood, plants, each other, bread, you name it. I just put them back in the ponds when they got to big. It is to bad kids don't get to wander off with their friends, a fishing pole, a dip net, and a five gallon bucket these days without their parents fearing for their lives.

Tilapia are VERY agressive fish and eat absolutely anything!

I wound up putting seven 3-4" HBG in the tank, and the tilapia immediately began attacking them. I got after Tillie with my little net and took her right out of there. She's now in a plastic 55 gallon water barrel in the greenhouse.

The best I understand about tilapia is that they are very protective of their territory. But even the related tropical cichlids they sell at Walmart are labeled "aggressive" fish.

Tilapia are pretty crazy. I have some young (couple week old) fish in a 100 gallon rubbermaid. I was feeding bloodworms 2-3x a day, and they are happy campers. I have an aquarium light over the tub, and one side of it was getting a decent amount of algae growing on the sizes and the bottom as I left the light on quite a bit. This is just thin algae on the surface of stuff. I went on a 2 day trip, came home, and all the algae was gone, and saw them mouthing the tub and the filter to eat every little last bit. No more algae problem. They are little eating machines.

dekalb08...

Rule of thumb for an aquarium to keep it healthy is one inch of fish per gallon. If you have seven 3" fish in there, you have twice as many as it can sustain for any long period of time. You may need to get a bigger tank or less fish.