How cold could an alligator gar survive in?
- Thread starter pdiddy010
- Start date
I've had gator gars in extremely cold water (28-35f) they were just fine sizes vary from 8" all the way up to 2'. I'm assuming they were captive bred since they were very small during purchase
Gator gar have native ranges in the north aswell...There actually reintroducing them into some cold water climates they used to thrive in like Indiana...
Thank you, guys. I didn't know. I thought gator gars were a thing of south and warmth loving.
Indeed, FishBase says their range is up to the 44°N north, which crosses the Great Lakes, so they must be able to handle frigid water... https://www.fishbase.in/summary/Atractosteus-spatula.html ... despite the "Climate" section stating "subtropical". That's misleading and I fell in that trap because I didn't look at where the parallel lies.
SeriouslyFish might too be misleading when it says the minimum is 11 degrees Celsius, while the water under ice is 4 degrees Celsius. https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/atractosteus-spatula/
Gallonage is ok but the key is the depth. It should be over 4' or even 5' so the pond draws on the geothermal heat and doesn't freeze all the way to the bottom.
If your worried about freeze over use a current pump to keep the surface moving extremely low Temps need more movement, I personally would have it set up so the pump feeds to a holding tank that's kept about 6 to 8 degrees above freezing then have you current pump feed from that so the surface is constantly warmer the pump that feeds you holding tank make sure it draws from the bottom it will even your Temps out to just above freezing allowing gar to breath air . During spring once you don't have a risk of freezing you can turn the heat off . Hope this helps this is exactly what I did for my uncles spring fed pond 13 ft deep it would freeze enough a pick up could park on it . Now we have one corner that freezes which is no big deal , gallon wise it's about 50 to 80,000 gallons we use 3 pumps for the surface as he has a island in middle
It's not just the minimum temperature to be mindful of. Even cold water fish can't handle large temperature fluctuations in a short time. So if your autumn or spring season gets a wide daily temperature range especially if you only have 5000 - 10000 gallons then consider a heater until the cold season has fully arrived, and then turn heater off.
