New Gar noob.

Jesseliu13

Polypterus
MFK Member
Jun 27, 2012
1,129
136
96
Holmdel, NJ
So i finally got a gar... im gonna put it in a 55 gallons for life. its about 5-6 inches... According to my LFS its a spotted gar.. though i have no doubt in my mind that its a "spotted" florida gar.. I will post the picture later for you pros to tell me what mine is. But anyways, I was wondering what are some good foods i can feed it.. i dont want to feed it live... preferably not considering i got a bunch of cichlids in there as well and i dont want them used to eating live as well. I see most people feed their's Hikari food sticks... I was wondering if I could possibly feed them other types of pellets as well... say for example Ken's cichlid pellets.. has anyone tried this? also im welcome to taking any tips.

By the way, i was kidding about the for life thing. it'll be in the 55 until its about 8-10 inches.. so it can get some girth before i put it into my monster fish group..
 

oddballfishguy

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 26, 2014
51
0
0
calgary ab canada
Hey ive got three gars atm an alligator a spotted gar and a florida gar there are getting pretty big as is but when mine started to get to about a foot they started eating my cichlids even took a huge chunk out of my 9" oscar I honestly wouldent keep them with many cichlids ive tryed a lot of species of cichlids and it never seemed to work most were " m.I.a " or were badly torn up even being fed meat every day


N if you do end up keeping him I was told about just getting macral ( the tiny uncooked fish u see frozen in a bag or fresh) cheap af lol

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zie2695

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jul 1, 2013
278
0
16
38
N/A
Bull****. Gars don't pick on cichlids
I have 2 fsg and both eatuploadfromtaptalk1391050889597.jpg and pick on ANY fish they think they can eat, even my cichlidsuploadfromtaptalk1391050889597.jpguploadfromtaptalk1391050946979.jpg and I feed then mostly massivore, and some times silversides and minnows. But 85 percent massivore. If there is a cichlid in there, they WILL eat them, I have 4 with my gar and now there is 0 with them and they looked too big for them to eat.
Just my experience.


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Mustardtiger101

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Aug 1, 2013
939
88
61
Canada
I had a 10" Florida gar, I strarted off feeding him silver sides and then tried hikari sticks, it took me about 3 weeks of starving him before he ate the sticks though.


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Jesseliu13

Polypterus
MFK Member
Jun 27, 2012
1,129
136
96
Holmdel, NJ
Well I got about 1/4 lbs of freeze dried superba krill from kens fish foods... Will it eat that? I got some leftover hikari sticks. I'll save them for the gar. I got an afrowana in the tank as well... Hopefully there will be no issues. If the gar so happens to be aggressive I'll throw him into the monster tank ASAP. Regardless of size.


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fish squish

Gambusia
MFK Member
Nov 24, 2013
140
6
18
United States
I gave my florida feeders till he was about 10 inches, then just stopped and started with massivores. He ate those eventually, massivores and smelt!
 

zie2695

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jul 1, 2013
278
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I trained both my gar to eat massivore without starving them, I didn't and still don't believe in "starving" them into eating pellets, what I did was to feed them what I knew they would eat one day (silver sides, cut up shrimp, or night crawlers) than the next 2 to 3 days I would only offer massivore. After about 2 and a half months they began to eat the massivore. This method might take longer, but I believe that it is much healthy in the long term for the gar this way as opposed to "starving" them into eating or die. Also it helps to have other fish (to large for the gar to consider food) in the tank with the gar so they learn that the pellets are food from watching them eat.

I read, and from my experience, they are more likely to eat pellets or sticks when they reach 10 inches or so.

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