Red spot on dorsal fin

[jim barry]

I have 2 spotted/florida gars both around 12 to 14".
I noticed on one of them it had a red mark on its dorsal fin after i had got it home. It was there for about 2 weeks and i got some photos of it at the time. It dissapeared for a long time (months) but this morning i just noticed it has come back. Anyone seen this before? Deffo not damage but the fin has changed colour.
One pic of the gar that has the spot and one of my other gar that has no spot at all.

 

[Chicxulub]

That's very interesting. I'd like to see what that is all about, looks like color development to me though. Great quality pictures, btw.

 

[jim barry]

That's very interesting. I'd like to see what that is all about, looks like color development to me though. Great quality pictures, btw.

Hi thanks. the spot is still there but notgetting bigger. more of a patch rather than a spot though. last time it disappeared, both the gars are spending more time together than usual so I am not sure that it could be a sexual thing??

 

[jim barry]

Hi thanks. the spot is still there but notgetting bigger. more of a patch rather than a spot though. last time it disappeared, both the gars are spending more time together than usual so I am not sure that it could be a sexual thing??

still spending a lot of time together cruising around the tank. The one that has the spot can lose the spot and then it can come back again. This gar must have lost and regained the red marking at least 5 times over the last two weeks.

 

[MonsterMinis]

Never seen anything like that.. interesting though. I'm assumeing there isn't anywhere he could "paint" himself on anything ect... because it looks like paint lol. the only other thing I could this is there is a blood vessel there so it could bleed.. but it doesn't look like a wound either. Gar are tough buggers.. if they aren't acting funny I'de say leave it alone. I know Sol and richard have said for a long time there is no way to tell gar sexs w/out venting ect... so if it is a breeding pattern/coloration it's something new as far as I'm aware.

def interesting, and x2 on the pic quality. wish I could take such nice clean pics.

 

[jim barry]

Never seen anything like that.. interesting though. I'm assumeing there isn't anywhere he could "paint" himself on anything ect... because it looks like paint lol. the only other thing I could this is there is a blood vessel there so it could bleed.. but it doesn't look like a wound either. Gar are tough buggers.. if they aren't acting funny I'de say leave it alone. I know Sol and richard have said for a long time there is no way to tell gar sexs w/out venting ect... so if it is a breeding pattern/coloration it's something new as far as I'm aware.

def interesting, and x2 on the pic quality. wish I could take such nice clean pics.

Hi thanks for comments on the pics. SLR camera and they take great shots.
Been a long time since i posted on this. Red spot still comes from time to time then dissaperas again. But the area of fin that the spot appears in seems to have dissapeared a bit. Fish not bothered by it. They still hang out a lot. Here is some updated shots. But with my phone so not as good quality i'm afraid. Regards sexing, i thought i read somewhere that the male is thicker set in the body and darker whilst the female is lighter and thinner set in the body. These two fit that bill. Both very different to each other. But the thicker set one will snap whole mussels from me the size of my thumb nail! The other only takes what it can find from the substrate so that maybe why one is fatter than the other? Both about the same length, 18" roughly.

 

[E_americanus]

-great pics and fish! as Amy had mentioned, my guess is that this is some sort of anomaly with the blood vessels in the fin (at least from what we can see via photos and not in person). that being said, there are plenty of weird patches of color that gars can develop...have had some fish with a reddish/orange dot, and another one that was partially xanthic, and then lost it except for a couple scales that were still yellow.

as for the sexing of the fish, the info you are mentioning may have come from an older source, but that is not applicable to gars. sexing captive gars is virtually impossible except for a few nuanced characters, and even then it's mostly educated guessing (at best). with wild fish there is a slightly better chance of external sexing, but even then probability of correct ID is low. at this point internal examination of the gonads is the only surefire way to ID the sex of gars (especially in captivity) --
--solomon

PS-- please do keep us posted with the pics as things change!

 

[adixon816]

-great pics and fish! as Amy had mentioned, my guess is that this is some sort of anomaly with the blood vessels in the fin (at least from what we can see via photos and not in person). that being said, there are plenty of weird patches of color that gars can develop...have had some fish with a reddish/orange dot, and another one that was partially xanthic, and then lost it except for a couple scales that were still yellow.

as for the sexing of the fish, the info you are mentioning may have come from an older source, but that is not applicable to gars. sexing captive gars is virtually impossible except for a few nuanced characters, and even then it's mostly educated guessing (at best). with wild fish there is a slightly better chance of external sexing, but even then probability of correct ID is low. at this point internal examination of the gonads is the only surefire way to ID the sex of gars (especially in captivity) --
--solomon

PS-- please do keep us posted with the pics as things change!

Dr. David knows exactly what he's talking about trust this man! Btw, hope your trip home was safe thanks again for the wonderful talk. - Alex