what's your source for these numbers? do you have a thread you're pulling these from? also, i would use some sort of qualifying statements...those t-gar and Cuban sizes MIGHT be over a lifetime, but i doubt the average captive Cuban gar reaches that size. mine are about 5 years old and about 19" each, and have been pretty slow-growing for the past 2 years.xander13;1683897; said:all sizes are on average for captive specimens
spotted/florida gar-24"
tropical gar-30"
cuban gar-30"
longnose gar-not too sure, seems like 30"
shortnose gar-previously i had thought 20", but richard seems to have something up his sleeve...
alligator gar-5'
hmm, for spotted gars, tropical gars and shortnoses i generally pulled from numerous threads here and from AP.(there was a thread on AP where this guy's trops were 30" i remember) as for cubans, most of them here(except mine, as she's been in a 422 all her life) are 24" at 2.5yrs old. plus i thought yrs were 20" at 4yrs old. so i guessed they wouldn't be getting much bigger than 30", keeping in mind that they can probably grow for quite a few more years...E_americanus;1684585; said:what's your source for these numbers? do you have a thread you're pulling these from? also, i would use some sort of qualifying statements...those t-gar and Cuban sizes MIGHT be over a lifetime, but i doubt the average captive Cuban gar reaches that size. mine are about 5 years old and about 19" each, and have been pretty slow-growing for the past 2 years.
before making statements like these i would qualify them better and/or list a source/explanation--
--solomon
Exactly...opinions are going to vary greatly on this topic.
Xander I'm pretty sure about first year growth so state it very much as being close to empirical. It is and can be replicated across various datasets and experience. Max size or estimated max size I'm getting weary about even touching at this time. there is far to much difference from various sources to say in one way or another what is a good estimate. I do really think people need to understand that these fish do obtain a large size but it is also needed for the individual keeper to monitor and alter the fishes conditions as needed. Some fish will obtain different potential than others. Too many factors are involved in this to accurately state what size a fish may get. Estimates are a sort of good guideline but these are being proved to be not at all accurate in all circumstance. The fact these estimates are regularly discredited does not make them useful..xander13;1686484; said:but for guidelines...which i'm sure is what Vizzerdrix26 was looking for, an estimate would have been fine...