Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

Trending News

Promoted
imderanged
Lv 4
imderanged asked in PetsFish · 1 decade ago

HELP what is this fish?

I FOUND a fish that I am almost entirely sure is a non-native species. (I live in NJ) It looks like a cichlid from the body shape. He is about 5 inches long, and the base body color is olive with iridescent blue spots concentrated around the head and also at the edge of his fins. He has a black spot circled in red near his gill. I think he has some red underneath him too. I brought him home because I didn't think he belonged in the lake. (I don't normally try and keep wild animals as pets, but it seemed VERY likely this was a tropical pet fish released into the wild.) He is a pretty aggressive fish too, when I was catching him, he tried to attack me instead of running away. Please help me, I am trying to find out exactly what he is so I can try and take care of him.

Update:

Thanks, but that's not it, it's wider than that (maybe "wide" isn't the right word, but I'm having trouble figuring how to word it, what I mean is he's bigger if you were measuring top to bottom, it that makes sense) and he is not nearly that red...his "base color" is a brown/olive color, with a decent amount of blue. I was just looking at him again, and the blue makes some horizontal stripes coming from his head. I'm going to try and get some pictures in a bit.

Update 2:

OK, mystery solved, I'm an idiot, it's not a cichlid, its a SUNFISH. It is native. I'm going to put it back.

2 Answers

Relevance
  • John
    Lv 4
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    It sounds to me like a Jewel Cichlid, but if it's not happy with it's surroundings then it's true color won't show.

    Give it a few days in a 20+ gallon tank @ 24-26c and see if it looks anything like this:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_cichlid

    (Wiki was the first thing i came to, so don't shoot me - at least it's got a good picture)

    OR... try this:

    http://www.sydneycichlid.com/jewel-cichlids.htm

    It would be easier if you could provide a photo for us to look at though so we can be sure.

  • Rei
    Lv 5
    1 decade ago

    Can you provide a photo of the fish?

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.