Longnose in frozen pond

[Chub_by]

Hi everyone

So, I've wanted a gar for a while but only Floridas were available here, which are too big for my tank and obviously won't survive a Winter.
Now I was going through some online stocklists and found some longnoses.
Looking at their range (up to the great lakes) you'd think that they'd easily survive our winters, but then those lakes and the surrounding rivers never freeze over so how would longnoses handle that? Also the fact that they are probably bred in Asia worries me.The pond in question usually freezes over for about a week per year, lowest temps in a normal Winter here are around -12.5C or 10F but that's just 1-2 nights a year. I could keep a small portion of the pond open but only lile a square foot or so.

What do you think?

 

[MHDevelopments]

Interesting.

I think keeping a section of the pond surface open makes good sense.

Also, to condition the fish, are you able to keep it in like an ingested garage over the first winter, in a tank or whatever, filtered but not heated at all. Doing this would allow winter temps to drop naturally but the garage wouldn't freeze and the gar would get a good dose of winter temps without going through the frozen pond scenario first time around.

Just an idea but I think the conditioning would help. Or just throw it in the pond in the summer and see how it gets on in winter!

 

[MHDevelopments]

Ingested garage?! I meant unheated garage. Bloody predictive text on my phone

 

[Chub_by]

The garage thing could work, great idea, but I don't have any room for that unfortunately, and the fish is too expensive to just chuck it in there and see what happens.

 

[Siddons11]

All of my local lakes have longnose and they freeze over every year with usually 12" + of ice. They will be fine if they have oxygenated water.

 

[Chub_by]

Thanks Siddons, that's really helpful! Might give it a go.

 

[MHDevelopments]

With that info from Siddons11 I'd definitely go for it.

Assume they could be kept in ponds in the UK then, that would be cool

 

[Chub_by]

Yeah man! The only thing that might put a downer on it is that they are probably bred in Asia - to know 100% about their cold-hardiness we'd need to know where the parent fish came from. Still worth a shot, though.

 

[MHDevelopments]

Yeah man! The only thing that might put a downer on it is that they are probably bred in Asia - to know 100% about their cold-hardiness we'd need to know where the parent fish came from. Still worth a shot, though.

Good point on the Asian issue.
As a species you'd expect the Asian bred fish to still be capable of winter hardiness, if acclimatised by entering your pond in the spring/summer.

You could also put a request on a bow fishing forum for people to catch, with a net!, wild specimens and sell them to you. Just an idea, I was looking into golden gar earlier and came across a bow fishing site where an MFK member was asking for golden gar to be caught and he'd buy them.

 

[Chub_by]

Yep, unless the parent fish were caught from Florida which would probably make them less hardy - of course if the parents are from the great lakes that would be alright.

Letting NFK members ship me some would be too expensive and complicated I fear.