Has anyone ever noticed their shortnose gars gulping air after they moved them from one tank to another. Yesterday I moved some of my shortnose from the grow-out pond to an aquarium so I can better enjoy them (they are only about 14" long). Two out of the three commenced to start gulping air over the course of several minutes until they were inflated and couldn't swim down more than about 18" from the surface, then they would slowly float back up to the surface and look like over stuffed gars. This morning I guess they decided that they had enough of just floating around and expelled the air and are back to normal.
Shortnose sucking in air
- Thread starter RedDwarf
- Start date
You guys don't seem to understand, they were gulping air and inflating themselves. Just imagine a overstuffed gar or one of them long balloons they use to make balloon animals, that's what they looked like.
shortnoses (and often other gars) act up like that from time to time. as previously posted, you do know that gars breathe air right? when they do this, they will tend to float upwards in the water column a bit, often to the surface until things equilibrate.--
--solomon
--solomon
I know they breath air, but didn't know that they would inflate themselves like balloons and hang at the surface unable to swim downwards to protect themselves from surface predators. There are 2 other Florida gars in the tank with the shortnose and only two out of the three shortnose that were place in the tank exhibited this behavior. I would think that an inflated gar at the surface of the water would make a easy snack for any predators flying overhead and even some scavengers because they are breaking the surface not just hanging slightly under the surface of the water like they would normally do. Luckily they were in a tank that was partially shaded so their scales on the upper half of the body didn't dry out. There are some floating plants in the tank but they decided to float in the open instead of in the plants. Can you recommend any good reading on gar behavior if there are any ie field observations or such. Just didn't think this type of behavior was very inducive to survival.