New tank with spotted gar

Hello everyone, first post.. been reading/watching/researching for abit, still lots to learn and do but i got the hobby underway over the weekend buying 4 used aquariums for 90$. Biggest is about 35g, roughly 36x18x12, and a 15g and 2x10g's.

Anyways i setup the 35g, i have 10 feeder guppies in there, 10 ghost shrimp.. they've already settled in, and today i bought a spotted gar. As I'v been doing research figuring out what i really wanted, the gar came up right away as a must have fish, its awesome! Seeing as i only have a 35g at the moment when i saw the spotted gar initialy in the store i didnt buy it, but ended up getting it on my second visit after talking to someone who worked there who said they very rarely get them in, maby less then once a year. So i pulled the trigger, i'm going to be getting a much larger tank anyways.. probably 220g minimum but i have my eye on a 500g used aquarium that i might get in the next month or so. I think the 35g will do me ok for a few months anyway, its only 12" high so its more longer/wider then a regular 35g, the spotted is about 4-5".

I added a cory catfish with the gar aswell, hoping that doesnt die but i dont really care about the guppies, i hope they get eaten! for the sake of my gar's good health anyways.

I'm running a top-mounted overflow(i think) water filter thats rated for 50g so its abit more then i need which is good, has a bio-wheel built into it. Have an airpump pumping air through an airstone buried under the substrate. I tried to go for a more natural look, eventualy when i get my bigger tank i'm going to make it a native tank, im thinking of going back for another spotted gar so i have 2, they are only 20$ ATM which i think is pretty good.

I also 6 water lettuces that are floating at the top and you can see in one of the pictures, and i got some underwater purple plant which i forget the name of, but it had purple in the name, anyways im hoping these plants help with the bio-load.

So far my gar hasnt really done all that much, he/she's only been in there for 10 hours or so and i imagine its abit stressed but for the most part its just been sitting on the bottom of the tank, it moves every couple hours to a different spot in the tank and then rests again, doesnt seem interested in the feeders/shrimp at all, im hoping it just ate before i got them and that its just abit stressed and will start eating later today/tommorow.

Water temp is about 21-22c, water is hard as its from a well and im working on getting a water softener/reverse OS for the future but not here yet, water is slightly alkaline around 8.5, im hoping that goes down as the tank adjusts, although im open to suggestions to get that in line quicker.

Anyways here are the pics, sorry for poor quality its mostly the lighting and abit of reflection from glass.








water lettuce in above pic, there is also two plastic plants in the tank.

Purple plant above.

Thanks for your time.

I hope its not but you could be right, its hard to tell, i'v looked up pictures of both and some dont look like my gar and some do, of both species.

Also im abit worried about it eating, i havnt seen it eat anything till i put it in the tank 24 hours ago roughly in the tank, i tried to hand feed it a squirming feeder guppie that i was holding by the tail but it wasnt interested. That being said i havnt been able to watch it the whole time and it could have eaten something during the night, there is suppose to be 10 feeder guppies but i can only count 5, there are lots of places they could hide so im not sure what to think. Looking at its body its hard to tell.

Here is a new day pic.
View attachment 852589

its weird cause i held a little guppie in my hand and tried to feed it to him and he wanted nothing to do with it, even swimming away from my hand, but it doesnt really seem very afraid of my whenever i come near the tank, even putting my hand in unless my hand is really close it doesnt care.

But yeah i think your right cause there was 10 guppies in there to begin with and i can only count 3-4 now, i should probably get some more soon. I cant tell if its eaten any of my ghost shrimp, theres so many places for them to hide and being transparent i can only find maby half of them.

BTW one of the reasons why i thought it might be a true spotted as they are native up here in ontario in the great lakes, when i asked if it was native he said it was, but then said that it ranged from up here all the way down to florida(the gulf of mexico). Which kinda makes me think he meant to say it was a florida, they dont always feel it neccisary to tell you everything.

Anyways thanks for your responses.

Some new pics, I went and bought another gar so now i have two. The one i just bought seems to be doing abit better then the first one i got, seems more active, ate a couple guppies infront of me which was cool to see, so fast. I got some clearer pics as its daytime, abit of unwanted reflection but still clearer.



above is two pics of new gar color is pretty crisp, below is first gar, it seems like color has faded abit... im not sure if he was this way when i got him or if hes not adjusting as well to the tank and is abit shocked but, he seems to be doing better lately and has been swimming around rather then sitting on the bottom.


Some guppies and harloquin rasbora's in group, moving rasbora's to their own tank today, nice little shoaling fish.
Below is group of water lettuce, they are really cheap at my LFS and i like them, so now i have 18 of them, the filter blows them all into this corner.

Last pic is two purple ludwidia's

Also i did a little measurement as i read somewhere that the different between florida and longnose gar was the distance from the front of its eye to the back of its gill, in relation to how long its nose/mouth is. the nose is 1" and the eye to gill is 5/8"s of an inch. I believe that means its a longnose, im happy with that!

Deathinnumbers said:

Are the tanks cycled. Sounds like u bought the tanks n threw fish in

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The answer is yes to both those questions. The tank is cycled, it may not be a perfectly matured cycle but i'v been adding a special cycle solution that cycles the tank in about 3-4 days, it may not be as good as one thats been cycled for months but its as good as one cycled for 2-3 weeks. And yes i did buy the tanks and gently placed the fish inside them, to be honest i would have waited a few weeks and even waited for a larger tank to get gars but apparently they are rare in this area and the LFS said they get them in less then once a year so i just jumped on it.

The whole point of a cycle is to properly maintain water perimeters like ammonia/nitrite/nitrate ph/hardness etc right? i monitor all these things a couple times a day and have a bunch of different things to use to adjust them to a desired level, i think the tank is sufficiently cycled but i expect it to get better over the next few weeks, and i think the plants help create abit of a buffer. I siphon off any uneaten food with a turkey baster for the most part.

Wiggles92 said:

Those both appear to be Florida gars.

You're going to need a bigger aquarium very soon by the way.

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Ahhh ok thanks, you could be right, it will probably be more easy to tell once they get abit bigger.

And yes i expect they will outgrow their tank in 1-2 months, hopefully 2 but i'm looking at a 500g tank, if it turns out to be to much for my space i'll probably settle with a 220-250g.

Thanks for your comments.