Help ID this fish

[thequagmire]

Hi all, I caught this little fish but I'm not quite sure if it's a bass or not. Please help.

 

[blacktip]

Looks like a tilapia. Pretty common in Florida but hadn't heard of them in Arizona

 

[Gearhead]

That looks almost identical to my juvie tilapia.

 

[thequagmire]

It's a bit hard to see in the pic, but the tail is quite red.

 

[thequagmire]

Oh... and if that's a tilapia... what do i feed it?

 

[Gearhead]

Mines tail is red also, its in my album as african cichlid. I feed him crumbled up cichlid sticks. It took him a while to figure out what food was, but now he begs and dances for it.

 

[blacktip]

It looks like what you have is a nile tilapia, probably an escapee from a local farm, or more likely offspring of escapees. Anyways, any primarily vegetable based pellet or flake should work.

 

[thequagmire]

That's awesome... Thank you!

 

[kdrun76]

There are lots of tilapia in Arizona and New Mexico, all released as pets or from farms.... They are a well established invasive.

 

[thequagmire]

Looks like the pond I got it from stocks tilapia to reduce algae buildup. Although they don't look anything like my fish... Here's one I just caught this morning.