unknown fish and possible parasite

It actually looks like a pumpkinseed to me...

not a bluegill, too long and not enough color. not sure on pumpkinseeds. it does resemble some type of sunfish but it also might be some sort of cichlid. Kyle

It's not a pumpkinseed, but it's definately a species of sunfish.
A much clearer picture may help, try and keep the camera a little more steady. The area around the head is hard to distinguish and that's usually how you tell what species sunfish it is, by the patterns around the head.


You know what, after looking more closely I think it actually may be a pumpkinseed. Put a dark background behind the tank and then take another picture. The fish's colours are much too pale to get a good description.


As for the infection, it's bound to happen if you took awhile to return home from the place you caught it without changing any water or keeping plants in the bucket/bag.
Even with a crapload of western waterweed in the bucket I managed to have one severely infected female and lost three out of four within a week. My largest resides in a 20g by itself.

Looked like a baby rock bass to me. They are part of the sunfish family.

Judging by the jaw line and coloration, that looks a lot like a green sunfish to me:
http://www.jonahsaquarium.com/piclepcyan1.htm

That's a great fish you have there. As long as keeping native fish is legal in your state, I think its a great idea.

The black spots are very familiar, my Rock Bass has them as well. I ran into an article awhile back that mentioned they were a stage of a parasite that would move on to birds next. No idea if that's the truth, although I've had my rock bass for 9 months now and the spots haven't change position or grown at all. On the other hand, he's almost 6 inches now, and he was about 3 when I caught him, so it doesn't appear to have hurt his appetite any.

Matt

Good call watcher. I've always thought that was a sort of rock bass. Looks pretty close.

What kinda tank you got that rock bass in. Is it like an Oscar? Is the water filtered?

Right now I keep the rock bass along with a pumpkinseed (4.5 inches) and pleco (10 inches, and stable there for the last year) in a 55 gallon tank. Filtration is an emperor 400, and the tank is moderately planted, with 120 watts of lighting overhead. The pumpkinseed and pleco are pretty easy to deal with (aside from the pleco's well known tendency to make a mess out of things), but that rock bass has no table manners at all. I've tried more than a few times to ween him off of live foods to try and get him to take frozen and flake, with no success. He just stares at the flakes for a second, and gives me this "I need real food" look. The end result is he eats a couple small feeders a day.

All in all, they're great, intelligent fish. I'd recommend these guys to anyone who has a large enough tank (I know I'll need a much larger one in a year or so, and I'm working on that!), and the willingness to have only a few fish in it.