What a good idea! One of my favourites! This fish is aptly named the "Sunfish" and although they inhabit the soft acid Wallum streams of the East Coast to maintain a population I have found that the ultra soft and acid water isn't needed. Indeed as you h
ave found Roy, it is hard to raise many fry.
I have always bred them in a school outside and not had too much trouble. However I have only been trying to maintain a population. Thgey have often spawned inside but in display tanks. I find them to prefer cooler ranges of temperature ( 15-25 C) and re
gular water changes and water flow via a power filter or power-head.
<<. What causes the the
random morphing of size and color in a select few of the males. I had possession
of a kin-kin cr male that was fantastic with the reddish orange color and near
doubble in size. Does the mean that that male would be the domminiant or just a
bloom of a recessive gene as in albinism.>>
I don't think the size is genetic - more likely environmental. They seem to grow bigger in captivity over here than they do in the wild. The colour inheritance is difficult to be sure about. I think the variability only occurs in a few populations e.g. a
round Cooloola/Fraser Island/ TinCan Bay area. I think it is due to a recessive gene as to whether or not there is any red and the amount of it is another gene of variable penetrance so it can be red tail only, 1/4 red, 1/2 red, 3/4 red, or all red. To ma
ke things still more complicated there are some isolated populations where all fish seem to have red tails only and others where the background dominant colour is pink instead of the more usual blue. This variable population also tends not to have the typ
ical irregular double lines along the sides or the red stripes in the fins.
The other populations tend to be reasonably homogenous with just a degree of variability in intensity of colours or amount of blue spangling on the nape etc.
Overall this is a very interesting little fish and deserving of greater popularity.
Bruce Hansen
ANGFA