are these blue gills? Or what are they?
- Thread starter jamskate18
- Start date
In florida there are many types of cichlids and non native fish. You might have caught warmouths, I think the have red eyes like that.
Not green sunfish, pumpkinseed, or longears. Maybe your getting them confused w/ rockbass? Im almost 100% sure there not sunfish, but they look really similar and its highly possible to get them confused.
Skipjack;497102; said:
There's no need. They're Oreochomis for sure. Which species? A little hard to tell at that size but based on what's most common you have one of the 4 most common.
Oreochromis niloticus
Here's a decent shot of a good sized one.
http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.asp?speciesID=468
They tend to keep their vertical stripes into adulthood. Some males can go quite pink, orange and purple when in breeding condition. They also get pretty big.
Oreochromis mossambicus
Males change color and shape to look like the fish pictured. Females keep some faint spotting or horizontal slashes. They will not be barred vertically as O. niloticus.
Oreochromis aureus
The "blue tilapia" is said to looks identical to O. mossambicus in color but they never develop the duck-billed mouth characteristic of O. mossambicus. They also get considerably larger than O. mossambicus.
or hybrids of whatever you see above.
http://nis.gsmfc.org/photo/Oreochromis_mossambicus.jpg
Which could vary greatly in color, shape, size and temperament.
And some pics of juvies of several species, just for comparison:
http://www.molluscan.com/fish/150m/lentor38.jpg
http://habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/marinefish/photos/335a.jpg
http://www.ittiofauna.org/webmuseum...omis_mossambicus/images/o_mossambicus-500.jpg
http://www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Cichli822.jpg
Hybrids are popular as farmed food fish. Other intentional "tilapia" hybrids are common as food, to produce bigger, meatier fish of a single gender.
There are other tilapia rampant in Florida, T. buttikoferi and T. mariae (which are egglayers). Yours are mouthbrooders, as are all Oreochromis sp. and more than likely one of the 4 above.
Tilapia have been introduced to many parts of the world and are known mainly as pests to natural environments which they are not native to. They've been well established in Florida a long time as have many other exotic fish species. They grow fast, eat anything and breed like cons on stimulants.
its definitely a tilapia. It is a cichlid and not a sunny for sure because sunnies have dorsal spines. (most north american fish have dorsal spines)
