Can you ID from a description?

I am hoping that there can be an exception made here. I took my walk today and found that the ditches are drying up. I found one spot that was several inches deep a week ago and is now only 1". This area is about 100 foot long and 1-2 foot across. it is being heavily fished by raccoons. When I walked past one small section of this, I saw several small black things at the surface. I couldn't quite make out what they were so I got closer. They were hundreds of small cat fish/bull heads. I was in awe of the number of fish in this little remnant of water. After sitting there for a couple minutes I resumed my walk. I got about 300 feet further down the ditch and saw a small bit of water about the size of the top of a 5 gallon bucket. This pocket was solid with fish and a couple tadpoles. There were two small carp in there that were already dead. When I walked up several of the live fish jumped out of the puddle. This is where the ID comes in one of the fish that jumped out was about 1.5 inches long, torpedo shaped, bluish brown on top and silver on the sides/bottom. The other fish was the same shape but was tan/silver all over with a black stripe running from above the eye to the center of its tail. The bullhead/catfish had two wiskers on top of their mouth, two at the corners of their mouth and four on their chin. can you tell from this what they are?

Almost forgot. I am in Marengo Iowa. About a mile away from the Iowa river. These were in a drainage ditch. They may have been deposited during a spring flood. There are no farm ponds in this area so they had to have come from the river.

Edited by RESET, 19 October 2010 - 08:41 PM.

This is where the ID comes in one of the fish that jumped out was about 1.5 inches long, torpedo shaped, bluish brown on top and silver on the sides/bottom.

That sounds like any number of fish you have around you. I would venture to say it is a Cyprinid, but past that I can't help you.

The other fish was the same shape but was tan/silver all over with a black stripe running from above the eye to the center of its tail.

Though this fish may also be a cyprinid of some kind, the first thing that came to mind was a topminnow. Did it look like this?


Also, based on the number of catfish you saw, I would bet money that it was a bullhead species and not a madtom species you saw. Do you happen to remember the color of the whiskers (barbels) on the bottom of the mouth?

The one with the black stripe didn't have that pointy shape to its mouth. It looked more like this. My link

I only saw the bottom whiskers a couple times as they "breached" they were dark, black or brown.

Edited by RESET, 19 October 2010 - 09:20 PM.

If they were Bullhead, they would have to be Black Bullhead or Brown Bullhead. Yellow Bullhead have white or yellow chin wiskers.

As far as the minnows, you should look in some books or at the photo gallery pages on this sight. (I'm not being mean, its just to hard to ID a minnow without a photo, you could do better because you saw them.)

I'm not sure what's in Iowa but I'll put my money on the Bluntnose Minnow


Photo courtesy of Uland.

That sure looks like the striped one. I am going to take a net and container with me tonight and see if I can get a pic or two. Provided they are still there.

EDIT: Looks like they are native to Iowa too. My link I am going to go back to that page and see if I can find the non-striped one.

Edited by RESET, 20 October 2010 - 11:15 AM.

All dead. No pics, they don't look the same anymore. Hope none of them were endangered or anything.

Found another hole today. I walked a different road than I normally do and found a spot that is a little deeper than the ones the other day. I wasn't too far from home so I walked back and got my biggest aquarium net and a Beta tank that we use for quarantine. I scooped up a bunch of fish to see what was in there and saw one that looked like the ones I saw the other day. This one doesn't have the stripe that the others did but it looks pretty much the same otherwise. Any ideas what this is?


I also got some sunfish in the scoop. I think they were greens but I saw something on them that I haven't seen on a fish before. There were little black bumps all over the fish. This isn't the best pic, I snapped several in hopes of getting one good one, but you can kind of make them out.

The top fish is a fathead minnow (note the small, terminal mouth and the crowded scales on the nape). You were right, the bottom fish is a green sunfish; the black spots are trematode parasites that encyst under the skin. They actually have a really cool life cycle; worth learning about if you don't already know it -- do a Web search on Uvulifer and you should get lots of fun stuff.

Thanks Dave, I will check that out.

You think I could collect some of these for my 75 gallon? Nothing in there but a WCMM and some Otos right now. I am thinking about going back to the bullhead hole and getting a couple of those too. How many of each do you think I could handle in the 75?

The fatheads would be fine in your tank. Green sunnies and bullheads are voracious and should not be kept with smaller fish; once they grew large enough they would annihilate your minnows and otocinclus.

Of course, be sure to check your state and local regulations first. Also be aware that the fish in these mudholes are likely to be stressed and therefore more likely to have heavy pathogen/parasite loads. Quarantine is always a good idea, doubly so in this case.