Tanked Sunfish: Currently Larvae...question on care.?

Question

I asked this in the fish section but no responses so far, I figured it may be something a different category could answer better.

We have probably 20 baby sunfish (still in larvae form) right now all in a regular goldfish bowl. I was told they didn't need an air pump or filter until they were out of the minnow stage. Is this true? Also, when do I need to actually start supplying them with food? and what? Right now they have the lake water and are apparently living on the phytoplankton and zoo plankton from that.

We caught them from a pond in a regular little dip net...so far they've lived 2 weeks in just a goldfish bowl with lake water but they are growing and I worry about caring for them as they advance. I'm not sure how to feed or care for them really since they are lake fish and so small

Answer 1

First they are not "larvae" they are fry, and they need food within a couple of days after they hatch.They will never have a minnow stage unless they are minnows. Minnows are a completely different group of fish from sunfish. Unless you can set up a 20 to 40 gallon tank you have too many fish. In a 40 gallon you can raise about 20 fish to about 1 inch long. GET a bigger tank now, add a filter system and start feeding them NOW!

Answer 2

you need to start feeding them... any plankton that WAS in the water is now dead or eaten..

you also need filtration on any tank with a living organism in it.. filtration provides aeration

try live foods such as copepods or daphnia caught from the lake or bought at the store/online.. you can then move to crushed flake foods and frozen foods, like bloodworms, etc..

there is no 'minnow stage'.. minnows are completely seperate animals from sunfish.. as soon as their egg sacs are depleted (2-3 days after birth) they need to feed

also 20 baby sunfish will QUICKLY outgrow any bowl and you should look into a 20 gallon tank and releasing a good number of them