Hungry Gars + Fingers = OW!

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
screaminleeman said:
Just confirmed my original thought of sticking entirely to the Lep. gen. Gars! No offense to you At. gen. Gar keepers, but just not my cup of tea.

I can't fathom a pet fish actually "biteing" me, but I am an avid fisherman and have taken on more than one occasion stingray barbs. I can't even begin to explain the extremely excruciating pain from one of these strikes. It makes bites from the Saltwater pirannah (Bluefish) and Flounder feel like an orgasm in comparison.

Madding, I think that I read that you also keep "stingrays". If that be the case, please be careful! It will give you a new perspective on PAIN caused by fish!

In the event that you fail to heed a warning from someone who has HANDled hundreds of rays prepare to be indoctrunated into real pain and PICS WILL BE A MUST!
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first off, glad you just got tagged and it was nothing too serious for you or the fish michael; that being said, definitely not fun! hope the ammo gets under control, if there is anything we can key in on please let us know.

to screamin - LEP genus gars can be pretty bad too, in fact my worst bite was from a wild spotted gar on a measuring board while in Louisiana. the wild gars of any genus have much larger teeth, i'll have to get some photos together as the comparison between wild and captive is ridiculous. we had a party where one of our guests put their hand in the tank and got tagged nicely be a longnose (in that case i was glad it wasn't a Cuban).

in general, gar bites are bloody because they have really sharp conical teeth that can pierce like those blood-sampling apparatuses. wild fish have teeth that cut in another plane too, so they can slice you up even worse! no matter what, if you get bit be sure to wash the wound thoroughly, a lot of the pain from fish bites comes from bacteria as well.--
--solomon
 
I doused my finger in peroxide almost immediately thinking about the bacteria.

The ammonia is at .25 this morning after frightening levels at the end of last week that came out of nowhere. A weekend full of water changes, lots of prime and no feeding brought it down quickly. I had my pH crash which I am guessing killed my beneficial bacteria and sent the tank into a mini-cycle to re-establish itself, resulting in dangerously high ammonia -- up 8 ppm at one point! I had to take my anguilla eel out of the tank but the gars had to take the high levels for a day or two (though the low pH was likely making it less toxic).

Long story short, the pH is back at normal levels, matching my tap closely. The ammonia is almost gone and the gars are very hungry! It was a short-lived emergency but I will be keeping my eye on it long after things stabilize to prevent another crash.
 
I surprisingly haven't been bitten by a gar yet, but I did get cut by one of my larger alligator gars scales when I was transferring it from one pond to another.

Madding said:
I doused my finger in peroxide almost immediately thinking about the bacteria.

The ammonia is at .25 this morning after frightening levels at the end of last week that came out of nowhere. A weekend full of water changes, lots of prime and no feeding brought it down quickly. I had my pH crash which I am guessing killed my beneficial bacteria and sent the tank into a mini-cycle to re-establish itself, resulting in dangerously high ammonia -- up 8 ppm at one point! I had to take my anguilla eel out of the tank but the gars had to take the high levels for a day or two (though the low pH was likely making it less toxic).

Long story short, the pH is back at normal levels, matching my tap closely. The ammonia is almost gone and the gars are very hungry! It was a short-lived emergency but I will be keeping my eye on it long after things stabilize to prevent another crash.
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What's your substrate and filtration for this aquarium?
 
E_americanus said:
to screamin - LEP genus gars can be pretty bad too, in fact my worst bite was from a wild spotted gar on a measuring board while in Louisiana. the wild gars of any genus have much larger teeth, i'll have to get some photos together as the comparison between wild and captive is ridiculous. we had a party where one of our guests put their hand in the tank and got tagged nicely be a longnose (in that case i was glad it wasn't a Cuban).

in general, gar bites are bloody because they have really sharp conical teeth that can pierce like those blood-sampling apparatuses. wild fish have teeth that cut in another plane too, so they can slice you up even worse! no matter what, if you get bit be sure to wash the wound thoroughly, a lot of the pain from fish bites comes from bacteria as well.--
--solomon
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Holy Smoke Sol!

Logan (My LNG) is SO much more agressive than the Floridas or Shorties (and has eaten many to re-enforce this) that I am even more intimidated by the At. gen. gar now. I can't lie and say that unlike the Spat., I don't have some attraction to the Trops. and Cubans of the At. gen. of Gar.

Seeing what Logan is capable of, I'm SURE that I still have a LONG way to go before being ready to try keeping the Cuban's or Trop's!

Out of curiosity, do the prominant second row of teeth on the At. gen. Gar contribute more to the damage done from an At. gen. gar than a Lep. gen. Gar? I would think that it would actually reduce the damage by increasing the contact surface area. Given the same PSI applied, I would suspect the single row of teeth to inflict greater damage. 10 pinpoint contact points @ XXX PSI vs 20 pinpoint contact points @ the same PSI.

IMO from some physics, which may not be being properly applied by me, it would require that the PSI of the bite generated from the jaws of the At. gen. Gar must vastly exceed the PSI bite from the jaws of the Lep. gen. Gar in order to be able to do the additional damage.

I have another curoius question regaurding the second prominant row of teeth in the At. gen. gar. Many species of saltwater shark carry multiple rows of teeth due to them being "breakaway" expendable. The "rows" of teeth revolve replacing the teeth damaged from hunting throughout their entire life. They essentionally will perish NOT able to discard and replace these "tooth" rows frequently.

Do the At. gen. gar regrow teeth extremely regularly? Do the rows migrate and replace as entire rows? If they are basically two rows of "permanent" teeth, what purpose do they serve over a single row?

A stronger PSI bite may explain the need for the second row of teeth on the At. gen. gar, as they may loose teeth from more agressive bite and shake attacks as from the Lep. gen. gar that cannot afford to loose it's single row of "permanent" teeth.
 
A thin layer of sand (less than an inch), two fluval FX5's (one of them only up about a week) and a 40g sump from two corner overflows.
 
Hahahaha. Sry but thats funny.
 
Madding said:
A thin layer of sand (less than an inch), two fluval FX5's (one of them only up about a week) and a 40g sump from two corner overflows.
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That second FX5 should do the trick with keeping water parameters in line. Adding some aragonite (sand or otherwise) might help to keep the pH in check, too.

screaminleeman said:
Holy Smoke Sol!

Logan (My LNG) is SO much more agressive than the Floridas or Shorties (and has eaten many to re-enforce this) that I am even more intimidated by the At. gen. gar now. I can't lie and say that unlike the Spat., I don't have some attraction to the Trops. and Cubans of the At. gen. of Gar.

Seeing what Logan is capable of, I'm SURE that I still have a LONG way to go before being ready to try keeping the Cuban's or Trop's!

Out of curiosity, do the prominant second row of teeth on the At. gen. Gar contribute more to the damage done from an At. gen. gar than a Lep. gen. Gar? I would think that it would actually reduce the damage by increasing the contact surface area. Given the same PSI applied, I would suspect the single row of teeth to inflict greater damage. 10 pinpoint contact points @ XXX PSI vs 20 pinpoint contact points @ the same PSI.

IMO from some physics, which may not be being properly applied by me, it would require that the PSI of the bite generated from the jaws of the At. gen. Gar must vastly exceed the PSI bite from the jaws of the Lep. gen. Gar in order to be able to do the additional damage.

I have another curoius question regaurding the second prominant row of teeth in the At. gen. gar. Many species of saltwater shark carry multiple rows of teeth due to them being "breakaway" expendable. The "rows" of teeth revolve replacing the teeth damaged from hunting throughout their entire life. They essentionally will perish NOT able to discard and replace these "tooth" rows frequently.

Do the At. gen. gar regrow teeth extremely regularly? Do the rows migrate and replace as entire rows? If they are basically two rows of "permanent" teeth, what purpose do they serve over a single row?

A stronger PSI bite may explain the need for the second row of teeth on the At. gen. gar, as they may loose teeth from more agressive bite and shake attacks as from the Lep. gen. gar that cannot afford to loose it's single row of "permanent" teeth.
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All gars of both genera (Lepisosteus and Atractosteus) have two rows of teeth, but said second row of teeth is much more prominent in Atractosteus gars.
 
Wiggles92 said:
That second FX5 should do the trick with keeping water parameters in line. Adding some aragonite (sand or otherwise) might help to keep the pH in check, too.



All gars of both genera (Lepisosteus and Atractosteus) have two rows of teeth, but said second row of teeth is much more prominent in Atractosteus gars.
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i'm pretty sure he understands that, and even if not, the second row of teeth in LEP genus is more or less irrelevant in that question.

no time to get into the details but i'll post a link to an actual gar species-wide PSI study that was done (including a fossil species) soon. you asked about tooth replacement...they don't necessarily migrate like in sharks, but they are replaceable in most cases. the crazy ones are the spotted gars we find in the wild which have huge fangs that have grown up from the lower jaws and THROUGH the upper jaw and protrude from the top of the snout...will have to dig up some pics...Richard and i have seen these "saber-tooth" gars here and there in our field work--
--solomon
 
Yea, my shortnose gar always made me nervous, so I never gave him the chance to bite me.
 
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