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- Thread starter xander
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Gar in general with the exception of Shortnosed have no issue with salt. I personally keep my Tropicals, Florida and Cubans on the low end of Brackish. Marine type salt is actually better to use than plain old sodium chloride. (IMO in reality I'm not sure it makes a difference)xander13;1565086; said:
xander...can you list your tankmates one more time? i still think the tank is overstocked for it's size. things really shouldnt be this complicated. all you have to do is perform regular water changes. that is all i do and my parameters are always near perfect. i have tanks with no substrate at all and it runs perfect. you are making this way to complicated man. i think if you just continue doing REGULAR water changes (the kind w/ water conitioner) and possibly downsize your stocklist you will be ok.
For just any other species of Gar I would agree with you Jordan, but not with Cubans. You do need to take extra precautions to minimize any fluctuation in the the water chemistry. It is essential husbandry wise to keep water parameters even and equal. These fish will not tolerate mini cycles or poor water like most gar species will. Any pH fluctuation, Ammonia or Nitrites will drastically affect these fish.demjor19;1565496; said:
You should post a full tank shot for us so we can see exactly what you have going on. Post a pic of your new aragonite substrate as well. I have no experience with Cuban gar so I can't tell you exactly the things you need in terms of stabilizing your PH and such (This comes from everything Solomon and Richard have been telling you from the beginning), but I can agree with Jordan in the sense that keeping up with water changes on a regular basis helps keep your water parameters from fluctuating. You not even knowing what a water change was or not using water conditioner was a big issue with your gar's poor health so I agree that these issues needed resolved before you even considered these fish. As Solomon has said, you should be reading up a lot more on basic husbandry and fish keeping. Start from the beginning and learn everything you need to know and if there is something you are in question about, ask people on here before you do anything.
couldn't agree more. i wish they were the same as some of the other hardier/more tolerant gar species, but that just isn't the case. as we've begun to find out, there is a continuum of gars that are best suited for the home aquaria (even though it's pretty safe to say that gars in general are only appropriate for dedicated aquarists anyway).Polypterus;1565519; said:
given what we know, i would say the continuum (taking several things into account) goes something like this, from most appropriate to least appropriate:
Florida/spotted gar - tropical gar -------longnose gar ------------shortnose gar-----Cuban gar--------------alligator gar
just a coarse estimation on care, size, availability, etc --
--solomon
so...richard and solomon...what precautions do you guys take to prevent fluctuations in water parameters? Are you using some kind of aragonite substrate? I am just trying to educate myself as well before I get a Cuban which will hopefully be in the near future.
firstly, i HAVE been using anti-chlorine. it's essentially the same as the conditioner as our tap water is drinkable. but just to be safe i bought water conditioner just now.
Tankmates:
19" cuban gar
2x 15" spotted gars
water changes:
for the last week or two it's been daily 30-40% changes
now it's reduced to 40% every 3-4 days
Water parameters(from yesterday):
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0.3
Nitrates: 5
pH: 7
Updates:
i added the aragonite substrate.however there was so much of it it covered quite a bit of the old one.
also added a canister filter
Pictures:
taken just after adding the canister and the aragonite substrate. hence the foggy water. however later on she went slightly darker, but when i went out(about 11pm) i switched the lights off, so now that im back i dare not switch them back on to see how she's doing...
sorry, i was out till late and couldn't get a full tankshot without disturbing the fish
Tankmates:
19" cuban gar
2x 15" spotted gars
water changes:
for the last week or two it's been daily 30-40% changes
now it's reduced to 40% every 3-4 days
Water parameters(from yesterday):
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0.3
Nitrates: 5
pH: 7
Updates:
i added the aragonite substrate.however there was so much of it it covered quite a bit of the old one.
also added a canister filter
Pictures:
taken just after adding the canister and the aragonite substrate. hence the foggy water. however later on she went slightly darker, but when i went out(about 11pm) i switched the lights off, so now that im back i dare not switch them back on to see how she's doing...
sorry, i was out till late and couldn't get a full tankshot without disturbing the fish
ok whether or not your water is drinkable is more or less irrelevant. i had made one of my initial posts before you said you were using anti-chlorine (which is the main issue with conditioning the water, so keep using that). what is in your "water conditioner" that is different than just a dechlorinator? does it remove ammonia too? if it isn't made for aquariums then don't use it.
the color of the fish may take a little time to go back to normal as it still looks pretty dark in these pics. and yeah, probably wise not to turn on the lights just to snap a shot.
your nitrites should read zero, so keep checking your water parameters every day until they do go down to zero. don't worry about nitrates.
=====
jordan -
in short, i use a cichlid sand substrate which contains a large amount of aragonite to buffer the pH in the system. since switching to this i have not had any of the problems i used to with the Cubans (including the problems that killed a couple...not fun).
water changes are every week or every other week, about 1/3-1/2. feeding goes from either every other day to two days fast in between feedings. temp is 80-82F. hope that helps--
--solomon
the color of the fish may take a little time to go back to normal as it still looks pretty dark in these pics. and yeah, probably wise not to turn on the lights just to snap a shot.
your nitrites should read zero, so keep checking your water parameters every day until they do go down to zero. don't worry about nitrates.
=====
jordan -
in short, i use a cichlid sand substrate which contains a large amount of aragonite to buffer the pH in the system. since switching to this i have not had any of the problems i used to with the Cubans (including the problems that killed a couple...not fun).
water changes are every week or every other week, about 1/3-1/2. feeding goes from either every other day to two days fast in between feedings. temp is 80-82F. hope that helps--
--solomon
