I have kept a 'true' alligator gar before. I have never kept any other gars before that, or after that, but if the other gars are anything like the alligator, no wonder you guys love 'em.
I knew full well that these guys get way too big. I TRIED to keep mine small. Kept him with a 9" tiger dat and some 7-10"inch Tall mono Sebaes. This thing can eat everything...
I started only feeding pellets, and he would eat tons of pellets. I switched to tiny pellets and hand-fed my Dat - he ate tons of small pellets. He would even skim the surface of the water eating the smallest little flecks of pellets..
People told me Oscars are the fastest growing fish. No, no...Snakeheads are...yep, beat the oscars..No, no...RTCs are...yep...way faster than the snakehead!...
Well, Alligator Gars are the FASTEST fish I have EVER witnessed getting big. From me 'holding back trying to stunt him', he grew to 15" in a 90 gallon (wouldn't dare put him in my 230 as he would kill most of everything there) in less than a year. LESS THAN ONE YEAR!!!!! And I was TRYING to keep him small.
By the way, he as soon as he was a bit bigger than the rest of my fish, he kept biting my other fish repeatedly. Lots of scratches across most of my fish.
This is a REAL monster. U guys with the 2000gallon + arapaima tanks should try one of these out!
