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Chinese Perch

Lovely perches you have got.

I wonder if I lit up my tank as bright, would the colors of mine come out as nice? I keep him in a pretty dim tank, heavily filtered (95% shade) natural light, because of the tank mates (catfish).

Got mine from Wes last Aug at ~1.5". Never offered live. Fed frozen-thawed marine bait fish. He started growing nicely, hitting ~5" in ~2 months. Rehomed to another tank and his appetite went down ~3x. He still eats ok but perhaps only every third meal he used to eat. Almost stopped growing too.
 
thebiggerthebetter said:
Lovely perches you have got.

I wonder if I lit up my tank as bright, would the colors of mine come out as nice? I keep him in a pretty dim tank, heavily filtered (95% shade) natural light, because of the tank mates (catfish).

Got mine from Wes last Aug at ~1.5". Never offered live. Fed frozen-thawed marine bait fish. He started growing nicely, hitting ~5" in ~2 months. Rehomed to another tank and his appetite went down ~3x. He still eats ok but perhaps only every third meal he used to eat. Almost stopped growing too.
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Mine almost don't feed or come out at all if the lights are on. Most of the time during the day I just let the sunlight beam in. It seems to make the perch and my datnoid alot happier when it's darker.
The lights being on keeps down the aggression in the tank. They all hide to one spot and don't bother each other. Lights go off I can hear the perch slamming his jaws on feeders.
Got any pics of yours?
 
Not yet. I've tried many times but it comes out too blurry to share. I will set up better lights and try again! When I get my goPro (hunting one at the moment).

So you are saying yours look that colorful and patterned in dim light, don't you? Mine does not look even as good as Sunnyjourney's. Most of the time brown, black, drab. Once on a while lightens up, shows dark vertical bars, a couple of dark spots.

He does not eat in any other way but ~ straight from my hand, having learned that a person means food. He follows me like a dog. Once the food hits the bottom, it's dead to him. And as I said, now 3-4 times out of 5, he shows an initial excitement and longing for food but does not take it as it hits the water and sinks.
 
thebiggerthebetter said:
Not yet. I've tried many times but it comes out too blurry to share. I will set up better lights and try again! When I get my goPro (hunting one at the moment).

So you are saying yours look that colorful and patterned in dim light, don't you? Mine does not look even as good as Sunnyjourney's. Most of the time brown, black, drab. Once on a while lightens up, shows dark vertical bars, a couple of dark spots.

He does not eat in any other way but ~ straight from my hand, having learned that a person means food. He follows me like a dog. Once the food hits the bottom, it's dead to him. And as I said, now 3-4 times out of 5, he shows an initial excitement and longing for food but does not take it as it hits the water and sinks.
Click to expand...

I'm having a rough time getting mine to show ANY interest in anything but live. If I try to starve them for one night even, they go after my silver dollars. The only time I ever see mine come out is if I hold the bag of feeders up to the glass. He comes rushing up to grab some.
And sunnys perch is on point. His has way lighter color than what I've seen. I'm wondering if these are true siniperca chuatsi. If you Google them, all wild caught ones are super dark and have no red coloration to them like my 2.
 
1KTOES said:
I'm having a rough time getting mine to show ANY interest in anything but live. If I try to starve them for one night even, they go after my silver dollars. The only time I ever see mine come out is if I hold the bag of feeders up to the glass. He comes rushing up to grab some.
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Sounds about typical. If you wanted to wean them off live, you'd need to create conditions where they can be starved for 1-2 weeks, even longer if needed. This cannot be done with small guys. The metabolism of these guys is too fast and they may perish before.

Wes sent me 4. The other three were tiny, ~1". The transport time / stress itself was too much for them. They could not turn around, even after having stuffed themselves with feeder guppies, the three smallest perished.

After having stabilized on guppies, I've started giving the lone survivor little frogs I caught outside. Once he learned that frogs come from me, I starved him a bit at ~3"-4" and he started taking fish pieces.

1KTOES said:
And sunnys perch is on point. His has way lighter color than what I've seen. I'm wondering if these are true siniperca chuatsi. If you Google them, all wild caught ones are super dark and have no red coloration to them like my 2.
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Right. Hence, in part, my amazement at the nice colors and patterns yours display.
 
Very nice. I'll be getting one of these. The only problem is i'll get a chiller for them and some north american fish I'll be getting as well. I've heard they don't tolerate warm water well and I came from the tropics:( I hope it grows as big as my nile perch
 
Very nice. I'll be getting one of these. The only problem is i'll get a chiller for them and some north american fish I'll be getting as well. I've heard they don't tolerate warm water well and I came from the tropics:( I hope it grows as big as my nile perch
 
bobVillanueva said:
Very nice. I'll be getting one of these. The only problem is i'll get a chiller for them and some north american fish I'll be getting as well. I've heard they don't tolerate warm water well and I came from the tropics:( I hope it grows as big as my nile perch
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I know they live in the cold water, but I haven't seen anyone set up a cooler tank for these guys. Breeding is probably impossible unless you can get those real cold winter time temps, which Def wouldn't work without the chiller.
I've had my 2 Chinese perch at 78f the entire time they have been in my care and have no issues. But if you look at videos online of people fishing them...everyone has winter coats on while they are catching em.
 
Taking out all of the silver dollars and the Mastacembelus ellipsifer is going to a different tank. These two are just too hungry for tank mates smaller than them. They sized up my silver dollars all night because I didn't put feeders in there last night.

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1KTOES said:
I know they live in the cold water, but I haven't seen anyone set up a cooler tank for these guys. Breeding is probably impossible unless you can get those real cold winter time temps, which Def wouldn't work without the chiller.
I've had my 2 Chinese perch at 78f the entire time they have been in my care and have no issues. But if you look at videos online of people fishing them...everyone has winter coats on while they are catching em.
Click to expand...

Yeah. :( I badly need the cooler. hehe! Sooner or later my northern pike might look for cooler water. How's the growth on these guys? i really want them to get massive:)
 
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