Bluegill aquarium - anyone?

[Clay Thompson]

So, has anyone tried to set up an aquarium just for Bluegills? Is it legal? Any suggestions?

[jim cosgrove]

bluegills do fine and they are legal here in illinois.crappies are stunning in an aquarium.i would say a 55gal minimum with lots of structure

[jim cosgrove]

i would stick with female gills.males will go into spawning mode with a lot of light and warm water and will even fight.crayfish are fun too but will climb out if they can.

[carl hendrix]

I MIGHT BE WRONG;; BUT DOESNT BRUCE CONDELLO HAVE SOME TYPE OF A BLUE GILL AQUARIUM ??

[Leo Nguyen]

Aquarium?! Oh hell no. The smallest is a huge pond, follow by his personal lake, and then extra 1+ acre ponds/lakes nearly by. He is a master of his army's genetics.

[NJAngler]

A 55-gallon crappie tank?? Picture please.

[Kevin]

I've kept many tropical fish over the years, I think the only potential issue is they like colder water, certainly salt water fish do and they make chillers for the water.  My water during the summer would be in the high 70's may even reaching 80 ish I can't remember exactly, but that affects the amount of dissolved oxygen etc  I'm not sure how temperature tolerant they are, but shouldn't be to difficult to search for the answer.  Hope it works, good luck

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

They are tolerant of temperatures from freezing to near 90 degrees.

Obviously, extremes in this range cannot be maintained indefinitely. But average room temperatures for humans are fine, year round, if you choose not to heat the aquarium.

As fishes of temperate waters, heated tanks should be held at temperature of 72-75.

No special filtration or other equipment is needed. Just regular 10-15% water changes and standard biological filters are all one needs for bluegill.

[Craig Thoreson]

Just remember in most states to keep naturals in a tank you have to always have a valid fishing license to keep them

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

Good point. Certainly a license will be needed to collect stock.

[Leo Nguyen]

Only if you're an aqua-culturist, attempting to cultivate more than a certain limit. Each county and state will dictate differently. If you're just raising a tank of a dozen or two, with intention for self stocking in your own pond, I don't recall you have to obtain a permit for it.

[Leo Nguyen]

I currently have a 70gal aquarium, but, momma is using it to house 7 of the gold fishes. However, I want to turn that tank, when they accidentally all died, into the redear/bluegill matting tanks for experiments.

Remember the rule of thumb: 1 of the 9in panfish must have 40gal minimum.

[Leo Nguyen]

You know what? I need to hit up waters with flyers (centrarchus macropterus), the aggressive member of the sunfish family. I can't seem to find them here in California, where reports had mentions of them. If I can breed them, and bring them back, oh, the fun! Until then, I need to get the genetics of the Colorado River's redears, or the hybrids. Those massive specimens will be a benefit to the local lakes to combat the zebra mussels infestation.