Re: NANFA-- snakeheads
R. W. Wolff (choupiqu_at_wctc.net)
Wed, 17 Jul 2002 00:22:22 -0500
I agree with that Moon. However, gator gar are far from mean. They are
actually quite docile. Less hyper than there smaller relatives the spotted,
long and shortnose and Florida gar. I have kept them in various set ups with
other fish. Gator gar were the least likely to bother an item that it could
not easily swallow. They are slow and methodical in their stalking of prey.
I guess the golden shiners I dump in their current home would beg to differ
with me, but that is beside the point. A terrible site I see too often is
gar placed in tanks with large cichlids. Usually gar end up finless, though
their scales protect their bodies, or even more gruesome, eyeless. Fins will
grow back. I rescued two gars in that situation. I would liken gator gar
more to be gentle giants. But when you can reach such a huge mass, and have
a mouth full of arrowheaded canines, you tend to look vicious. Out of the
fish I keep, the green sunfish, or the dollar, would be the meanest. But
the one native who topped them all, smallmouth bass. I kept them before size
limits were imposed. The only fish to whoop them, jewel cichlids, the common
ones. The jewels took their beating, and when the smallie ran out of steam,
the pair of jewels nearly tore him apart. When I seen what was happening,
the jewels ended up in my gar tank, and lived a secluded life under a log,
though they were not eaten, they did look rough.
Getting back to Moons point, and what I was sort of getting too in the
bowfin " non disturbing" post I did. Snakeheads are not anymore evil than
bowfins or white sharks, and should not be demonized. The point that Moon
made about the diseases and throwing the food chain out of balance are the
better , more intelligent argument to be made.
Ray
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