Identification Needed

[BertieWells]

Hi Guys and Gals,

I looked in my pond today and I found the following fry. The pond has been established 3 years now and these are the first fry i have seen (apart from stickleback). I have an idea what they are but was hoping you could confirm my guess of Grass Carp.

The pond is stocked with:
Stickleback
Roach
Rudd
Common Carp
Mirror Carp
Grass Carp
Gudgeon
Skimmers

I hope the attachemnt worked.

Thankyou In advance

Rob

 

[addy1]

Nice little babies, I have no clue on what they are, but they are cute. Congrats on being a fish parent!

 

[BertieWells]

Why thankyou

 

[Mmathis]

Fish! (Sorry, no clue.)

 

[BertieWells]

Thanks for the replys guys. I guess it dosent matter what they are but would be interested to know

 

[bigbenj21]

i would say gudgeon not sure thou

 

[BertieWells]

The reason i discounted gudgeon was because they seem to have an upturned mouth. Is it possible the mouth migrates during development?

 

[fishin4cars]

They appear to be small live bearers. Probably some type of native mosquito fish. They really don't look much like fry of any of the fish listed. I've always wanted to try stickle backs. I actually own a book that is probably 60-70 years old and it talks about keeping stickle backs in one of the "Chapters" LOL Seriously that's how ancient the book is about fish keeping. I have never seen one available for sale and the only live ones I've ever seen they were in a public aquarium.

 

[BertieWells]

That is an interesting theory. Do you have any idea how they would have got into the pond as all the fish have been shop bought? I wasnt aware of any cold water fish that were live bearers. In reference to the sticklebacks they are actually super interesting to keep especilly if you have a relatively clear pond. The males will make these nests all around the pond in the shallows with some sort of mucus they produce. They gaurd the nests really aggressively chasing other males at least a few meteres from the rest. Around this time of year (spring) you also get lots of males dieing i assume through fighting. Eventually a female will come and lay her eggs. Then you have a pond teaming with fry. Quite cool to watch the whole process!

 

[addy1]

If you put plants in your pond, there could have been eggs on the plants, or even eggs stuck on critters that visit your pond.

 

[BertieWells]

Yerr another good point. Plants haven't been added for over a year though :/

 

[addy1]

oh well The stork dropped them into your pond...................

I get fish in my fishless ponds all of the time, the eggs get sucked up by the pump, manage to survive the trip through the pump, down the piping to the other ponds. Just found fry in a pond that had no fish at the beginning of the summer, now it has lil babies.

 

[BertieWells]

Thats quite interesting, you would have thought the pump would bet them up too much for them to survive. Alas we only have the 1 pond.

Fishin4cars: What makes you say they are live bearers?

They are now in my fish tank looking quite content. About 1cm long now with still no obvious markings.

 

[HARO]

The upturned mouth is typical of guppies and mosquito fish. IF they are livebearers, the males should start showing the gonopodium, or modified anal fin.
John

 

[Fishylove]

Looks like a guppy to me too. Im not sure what mosquito fish look like.
Just the other day I was fixing, YET ANOTHER, messed up lily pot in my big pond. Low and behold I got the bagebers scared out of me by a 2 inch long crawfish buried in the pot :huh: no idea how it got there either lol. Birds or critters no doubt. Or maybe my cat, she likes to catch things and play with them :/