How often to feed a lean/mean gar?

Mercury2234;3799375; said:

Just wondering, how often do you feed your gars?

While I've seen some floating sausages, I am trying to keep mine lean towards the healthier side.

I begun feeding a variety of prepared food once a day, but I am noticing the gar gaining considerable girth.

At what point do I control his diet, so that it wouldn't be detrimental to his overall health?

PS...No goldfish feeders...live minnows once a month type of deal.

Appreciate the inputs...

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thick doesnt mean unhealthy... varied diet of raw frozen fish shrimp silversides and pellets and no feeders is the way to go

I feed my two floridas frozen tilapia, frozen krill, freeze dried krill, silversides and earthworms. They refused all pellets. I feed all of my fish every other day, which is essentially skipping a day between feedings and they are growing at what I'd call a healthy rate.

they should be thick but not a fat roll. unless they are shortys or longnose. apparently they should still be pretty lean.

feeders are fine just QT your feeders.

pics would help. go to my gar quiz. that shows my gar. they are all healthy(the shorty is a bit under sized IMO) and my largest florida is quite thick

feeding varies with age and also varies with temperature to an extent. how big are your gars (from which we can estimate age to an extent), what size tank are they in and what temp are you keeping them at?

YOY (young of the year) fish should be fed every day up until they are 8-10", and then can easily be moved to an every other day feeding regime, depending on how much you are feeding them per feeding. gars 1 year old do well on every other day, and can go for a longer fast depending on the ration of food per feeding. for my big gars (which are around 6 years old or more), i use a two day fast between feedings...and they still pack on weight...sometimes i feed even less, but these are usually large feedings with a two day fast (about 1/2 pound of shrimp or 1/2 pound of tilapia per feeding plus some sinking pellets). --
--solomon

yeah feed those fish every day until they are about 10-12" and you can switch to every other day. feed only as much as makes their stomachs bulge a bit and leave it at that. that size tank (assuming about 18" wide?) will do for those fish for quite a while, so you have time before an upgrade. good luck--
--solomon