Hi everyone! I know how frustrating it can be when you buy a nice fish, but it just refuses to accept pellets like the rest of them. Before buying the Gars, I visited numerous forums to get as much advice as I can on training the gars to accept pellets instead of live feeder fish (I do believe they get the most nutrition from high quality pellets, instead of feeder fish). I've finally succeeded, so I thought I'd share my experience here.
I bought two spotted gars (was told they are alligator gars) 4 each from my LFS roughly two months ago. I housed them in a 55g planted tank, with sand substrate (they tend to settle on the ground quite a bit). The first 4 days I fed them feeder guppies one a day, this helped them settle down a bit. After which, for the next two days, I didnt feed them anything at all. 7th day, I started giving them small pieces of various types of fish and meat once a day (be careful while feeding, if any particle falls on the floor, be sure to take it out as itll catch fungus very very soon). I use to drop it just on top of the Gar, so that they can see it fall. This continued for almost a month, during which time I shifted them to a larger tank with a Silver Arowana and a TSN (both of which were on pellets). Once they had settled properly in the tank, I started giving meat to the gars once every two days (again, use to drop it right on top of the fish). This resulted in the Gars being hungry and watching the other fish gulp down the pellets. Overtime, they simply started following the Arowana and the TSN. Now they are more then happy to accept pellets all the time.
Hope this information helps!
I bought two spotted gars (was told they are alligator gars) 4 each from my LFS roughly two months ago. I housed them in a 55g planted tank, with sand substrate (they tend to settle on the ground quite a bit). The first 4 days I fed them feeder guppies one a day, this helped them settle down a bit. After which, for the next two days, I didnt feed them anything at all. 7th day, I started giving them small pieces of various types of fish and meat once a day (be careful while feeding, if any particle falls on the floor, be sure to take it out as itll catch fungus very very soon). I use to drop it just on top of the Gar, so that they can see it fall. This continued for almost a month, during which time I shifted them to a larger tank with a Silver Arowana and a TSN (both of which were on pellets). Once they had settled properly in the tank, I started giving meat to the gars once every two days (again, use to drop it right on top of the fish). This resulted in the Gars being hungry and watching the other fish gulp down the pellets. Overtime, they simply started following the Arowana and the TSN. Now they are more then happy to accept pellets all the time.
Hope this information helps!