Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Fish with orange stripe from local creek

Will try to get more examples for better pictures. Plump bellies and a bright orange streak present. Maybe a spawning color? Kids were excited splashing and trying to net with tiny aquarium nets.

Also excited that this creek near my house has native crayfish too. Pincers have orange tips.

It's not one of those orange mine runoff streams, is it?

I believe that's a mud minnow but I don't know the model.. Cody will know.

Actually browsing google images brings up another old thread from this very same helpful forum. It shows a minnow with similar body color, morphology and spots. Mine may have a little more red on it but that could be more spawning colors? In this older thread it was eastern species of dace. I'm guessing mine is probably a species of dace too which is really cool. I'm not sure they do well in ponds, probably need moving water.

Similar minnow ID from old thread

I'd say you got it CC. Looks darn close to me.

Actually these fish had more black dots on a green background and a prominent belly. Looking again, it matches more closely to the western blacknose dace. But at least we know they are a good sign of a healthy creek and the dace are spawning!

I attached a picture from the Iowa DNR. I can see in this picture they have a downward angled mouth. I'll try to inspect more closely as we will try to capture a few more today.