GarLab II [Saline-MDNRE] - Tropical Gars

[E_americanus]

Given all the recent hype with the incoming SGP tropical gars, as well as some work I was doing with TPGs earlier today at another gar lab venue, I figured I would post some pics.

Although Richard and I both have other TPGs we maintain at our respective homes, this group (individuals from both our collections) was maintained at The Tank for about a year and moved to GLII last summer. Today I moved them from a raceway tank back into a 250g round fiberglass tank as prep for upcoming work. You can see some shots of other tanks...soon to contain some other fish as well

As with the CBG thread, I will update as I get time as work progresses. We are still in the process of setting things up/modifying the lab for further work, but there is a lot of potential (will continue with other locations in the near future too).--
--solomon

PS--
current stock = 4 x tropical gar Atractosteus tropicus
size range from this past summer = 16-20", they are all somewhat larger in length now (will post new values next time i take them out for measurements).

PPS-- apologies for preliminary crappy pics (taken with an iPhone)

 

[Madding]

Very cool Solomon. Anyone interested in the tropicals should use this shot as a good idea of the highly varied patterns (just out of these four there appears to be a heavily spotted, a lighter gray/green, and a darker one).

Of course we can't see the sides of the fish (where each one likely has some degree of blotching/spotting) but still.

 

[E_americanus]

oh and another note about these fish:

- from the last photo, going clockwise from the far right, the fish are female - male - female -male --
--solomon

 

[Madding]

Awesome.

 

[Wiggles92]

Cool stuff, Solomon. I'm interested to see what comes of this project.

 

[E_americanus]

thanks for the comments guys, we have ~5-6 more fish (TPG) that may be added to this group. will post updates as they come up/time allows--
--solomon

 

[channarox]

Just how wide are those tanks? Keep us updated!

 

[HungDang]

cool lab! for the last pic, did you feed them or you are feeding them?

 

[E_americanus]

Just how wide are those tanks? Keep us updated!

tanks are a little over 48" in diameter--

cool lab! for the last pic, did you feed them or you are feeding them?

thanks! i fed them after taking the pic (gut-loaded feeders), but i was mainly sticking my hand in the tank to give some idea of scale...although it's hard to shoot with the camera/phone in the other hand at the same time!--
--solomon

 

[Hao]

Very nice!