Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Green sunfish

What species of hybrid is a green sunfish

I think green sunfish is its own species, not a hybrid. However, it does hybridize at times & people cross breed them with other species like redear to achieve fast growing, aggressive fish.

Green Sunfish species = Lepomis cyanellus.

Thanks for the answer. The guy at the fish farm was telling me that green sunfish is a cross between RES and BG. I told him I didn't think so but I thought I would do some research

NOT a ringing endorsement for using THAT fish farm!

Yes! Unfortunately we have very limited choices here

Around here, fish farms push 'Hybrid Bluegill'. The bigger, better version of BG in their opinion.
It's actually a cross-breed between Green sunfish and Bluegill.

The problem comes later, when the offspring show up.
They are completely Green sunfish. Not a particularly desirable species in the backyard pond.

Contrary to common myth, the offspring of hybrids do not "revert" to one of the parent species. The offspring of hybrids contain a greatly varied mix of genes from the two parent species, so that some offspring may resemble either parent species, while some look more like the original F1 generation of hybrids.

If your BGxGSF Fx offspring end up all resembling GSF, you are likely managing your pond to encourage fish with mostly GSF genes over over those with mostly BG genes.

HBG can/do exhibit hybrid vigor (aggressive, fast growth initially) in the original generation but can/likely exhibit outbreeding depression (bad traits) in subsequent generations. In addition as a high % are male (66-98%) they do not reproduce in large numbers.

Kinda the same way here, the local people, not necessarily professionals, have somehow figured out how much bigger and faster HBG grow so that is what they look for.

You can get BGxRES.. They are available and do grow to large sizes but they are limited by mouth size.

Do those hybrids have the ability to break the snail/parasite cycle? (Do the F1 hybrids have a sufficient pharyngeal jaw and musculature to perform like pure RES as regards consuming snails?)

Still a bigger mouth than straight BG.

HBG only grow faster than BG initially - not over time. Remember that almost all HBG are male and if you compare 2 yr old HBG with 2 yr old male BG there is not much difference. HBG are more aggressive and that helps with catch rate even to the point of elimination.

In my experience the HBG, at least in this area, trend heavily towards GSF traits in each subsequent Fx generation. Perhaps in a closely managed setting you could retain more BG characteristics, but I haven't seen that around here. Would be an interesting study for someone to complete.

I do think we have had farms push HBG in many cases where they weren't a good fit for the goals for the pond so they likely did not receive the population attention they needed to manage the offspring properly.

A Green sunfish is Lepomis cyanellus.

Here is an old thread or two about GSF, green sunfish. The pictures are not longer there but the discussion is.

100% green sunfish

GSF by jdfarmer

Well I picked up fish Thursday was looking for CC for my big pond but I wanted RES for my minnow pond(just FHM) so I would hopefully have a RES spawn. When I met him to get the fish the CC looked pretty decent but the tank with the "one to three inch " RES looked like it was empty. He called me before we met and said he had some a little bigger and wanted to know if I wanted to pay three dollars apiece for them. I thought the others would grow and maybe a few would pull off a spawn this year.so I said no. I only bought twenty-five for a dollar apiece. I should have told him to take them back to the farm.but I didn't when I got them out of my tank I counted them and only had seventeen I could have put them all in a one tablespoon measure. We don't have many fish suppliers around here it's a shame that they are more concerned about making maximum profit than customer satisfaction.

There are two ways to run a business. Maximum profit on every transaction, or provide excellent value for the money and develop a deep list of happy and dedicated customers.

All of the highly successful business people that I know, chose the latter approach within their particular industry.

I hope you have better luck next time!

My neighbors and I have banded together and created pretty much any type of fish we might want except HSB in our ponds can't find HSB anywhere here so it's just a matter of catching some of what we want definitely more fun than driving to pick up fish.

So true. Maximizing short term profit at the expense of the customer is the road to failure, but I see lots of examples.

Being a member of the Bucket Stocking Brigade sounds like a pretty good job!

Yes I would much prefer to spend hours catching fish than spending hours driving in traffic and then get subpar fish in the end. Ps when I sent him a picture of the fish in a bucket and told him I was not satisfied he told me that those fish should have been half the cost he charged me. Then he apologized for " not addressing it sooner" even though I am sure he would not have said anything until I complained.