Very Pressing Question

[Diesal]

Okay, so I know that when you read this, you may not think that it is a very important question to ask, but to me, well it has been bugging me for years. I need a fish identified, because upon searching the internet pretty thoroughly I have not found anything to tell me what this fish was. I will explain this in detail.

About 6-8 years ago, I was at the beach a few days after a tropical storm. I live in Nova Scotia by the way, this beach isn't very public and is quite rocky. Well, me and my brothers uncovered a small fish swimming on it's side. Obviously it was tropical because of it being brightly colored, and unlike any other fish from around Nova Scotia. It must have been a freshwater fish because the fact that it was doing a bad job of swimming on it's side just told me that. Logic.

Well I wonder if anyone can identify this fish for me with the details below.

About 2.5 inches in length.
A long spine on it's belly that was about 1.5-2 inches long. (Poisonous?)
Bright yellow in color.
Rounded sort of shape.
Freshwater fish.

If anyone could narrow it down to a group of fish or something so that I could identify it, please, that would be much appreciated.

 

[kribensis12]

Could you post a picture? Just upload it to photobucket (it's free) and copy the

 

[Diesal]

I wish I could, I am just looking for maybe a species so that I can continue from there and find it myself. We had no camera on hand at the time, because we were amazed. I think it had stripes or spots..

 

[kribensis12]

Are you sure it wasn't a saltwater fish? There are many brightly colored SW fish out there. It may have been sick, causing it to have problems.

 

[Diesal]

It may have been, but my dad thought it was because of the tropical storm that it landed at the beach.

I would think that the long spine would be telltale to what kind of fish it was, because upon searching the internet I found nothing on fish with just one long spine on their belly.

 

[kribensis12]

A tropical storm just means that it is a warm weather storm. Not a storm that drops tropical fish =]

 

[Diesal]

No it was because a Southern current blah blah did something, causing a storm and moving the fish. I live right above where that Labrador current and that other Southern one (forget the name) meet.

 

[loraxchick]

No it was because a Southern current blah blah did something, causing a storm and moving the fish. I live right above where that Labrador current and that other Southern one (forget the name) meet.

this is in fact correct. the warm gulf stream travels up the eastern coast of the us from the gulf of mexico and the caribbean. it is a fairly swift moving current (about 3 miles/hour) which carries warm water up the coast. right off the coast of Long Island (NY) it takes a right (sort of hooks out into the ocean) and as it does this is spins eddies of warm water toward the shore. all SORTS of tropical fish get "trapped" in the current as it moves north (by trapped they stay in the warm water and in no time find themselves in latitudes youd never expect to see them), and when the eddies spin off, it carries these fish to waters in which youd NEVER think youd find tropicals. the fish in question was most likely suffering as now it found itself in COLD nova scotia water in which it can not survive.
i went to college on eastern Long Island for marine bio. we caught many many many tropical marine fihs as a result of this very occurance (gulf stream spitting off eddies basically to the door(bays) around my college). some "yellow" fish i remember were butterfly fish (fairly small-with some white and a black dot on the tail), tangs, even parrot fish. realistically, that specimen could be one of several dozen species that would have been caught in the gulf current. just have a look around for some yellow tropical marine fish until you see one it resembles.
cheers
also have a look at tropical gobies, blennies,wrasses (species youd find in the caribbean)..just a thought on the "long spine" on their bellies

 

[Diesal]

I'm searching. I'm doing some "I'm feeling lucky" searches to see what comes up.

As for the fish you reccomended, this fish had more of a rounded shape so the gobies and blennies, etc can't be it.

 

[loraxchick]

I'm searching. I'm doing some "I'm feeling lucky" searches to see what comes up.

As for the fish you reccomended, this fish had more of a rounded shape so the gobies and blennies, etc can't be it.

some sort of trigger? just giving some ideas
happy searching

 

[Diesal]

I managed to find it, the color was a bit lighter on the fish I found possibly due to the fish's poor condition.

Here's a picture.

BOARFISH​

 

[loraxchick]

could have been. and the paleness was most likely due to stress and that it was on its way out in the cold water. glad you found the little chap after searching
cheers

 

[Amberleaf]

What a nice fish!

 

[GAB99]

good for you that you found the thing that has been bothering you

 

[Lokemer]

Wow that's a prety awesome looking fish, are you going to put it in a tank?