Will a severely stunted gator gar grow properly?

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aidenb

Feeder Fish
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Nov 26, 2007
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Got a call from a lfs about a baby gator gar that they've had for almost a year and asked if i'd take it, the fish itself is still only maybe 6" at 1+ years old. Will it grow to its full potential with proper care?
 
aidenb said:
Got a call from a lfs about a baby gator gar that they've had for almost a year and asked if i'd take it, the fish itself is still only maybe 6" at 1+ years old. Will it grow to its full potential with proper care?
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Maybe it will, maybe it will not. One can never really tell how badly stunted a fish will remain even after being given the best care.

In this case, it's in the best interest of the gar to plan on it still reaching its full potential just in case it does have a major growth spurt once given proper care; you'll be much better off than if you don't have plans for caring for it should it reach its full potential.

I currently have a gar that went from being ~10" when I got it earlier this year to its current size of ~14". Said gar was definitely older than one year and was past its main growing stage, but I'm not 100% certain on the exact age.
 
I would expect the gar to still get 24"+ even with this level of stunting. Also I have to ask but are you sure this is a gator. Even with information readily available stores frequently mislabel florida gars as gators.

I believe it was Richard that had a gator gar than stayed around 6-8" for a couple years before going through a growth spurt and settling around 24".
 
poor thing.. get the gar bro it will surely grow back...
 
It's for sure a gator
 
no way it gets to its full potential...but "full potential" is also a relative term. "full potential" for the individual fish doesn't necessarily mean "full potential" for the species...not all gators get to 10' as we well know. with that level of stunting early on there is no way it becomes one of the larger gator gars. 24" is possible, but highly doubtful that gar ever reaches 3' in its lifetime. early life stunting takes a tremendous toll on growth potential in fishes...they can bounce back to an extent, but nothing near the "full potential" of the species.--
--solomon

PS-- not sure which of Richard's fishes we are talking about, but i don't think any gator was just 6"...we had some "bonzai gators" that stayed around 10-12" for a long time before spurting, but not stunted to 6".
 
E_americanus said:
no way it gets to its full potential...but "full potential" is also a relative term. "full potential" for the individual fish doesn't necessarily mean "full potential" for the species...not all gators get to 10' as we well know. with that level of stunting early on there is no way it becomes one of the larger gator gars. 24" is possible, but highly doubtful that gar ever reaches 3' in its lifetime. early life stunting takes a tremendous toll on growth potential in fishes...they can bounce back to an extent, but nothing near the "full potential" of the species.--
--solomon

PS-- not sure which of Richard's fishes we are talking about, but i don't think any gator was just 6"...we had some "bonzai gators" that stayed around 10-12" for a long time before spurting, but not stunted to 6".
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I think that this post is what Kevin was referring to:

Pejelajarto said:
On growth though I had a similar fish. One gator I have would not grow past about 8 inches and even became known as the Bonsai Gator for just not growing. It stayed at about 8 to 10 inches for about 2 years. Funny thing is then it exploded in growth and reached well over 24 inches in less than one year. I really have no idea why there was a delayed growth.
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Wiggles92 said:
I think that this post is what Kevin was referring to:
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thanks for digging up the post. i did, however, know which fish he was talking about since i had a fish from the same batch and it was similarly stunting, if not moreso...mine never exploded in growth, however it did eventually grow a few more inches before the Croc II killed it...or it may have developed nervous system issues since it was already deformed...hard to remember exactly, but it was the same batch as i essentially picked them up for richard and myself.

all that being said, doesn't change my original statements in the slightest...that much early stunting is definitely going to prevent the fish from reaching its "full potential" (as a species), and it will definitely not be one of the larger representative individuals of the species either. on top of that, our size estimates for our bonzai gators are pretty plastic as we never really did measure them exactly.--
--solomon
 
E_americanus said:
thanks for digging up the post. i did, however, know which fish he was talking about since i had a fish from the same batch and it was similarly stunting, if not moreso...mine never exploded in growth, however it did eventually grow a few more inches before the Croc II killed it...or it may have developed nervous system issues since it was already deformed...hard to remember exactly, but it was the same batch as i essentially picked them up for richard and myself.

all that being said, doesn't change my original statements in the slightest...that much early stunting is definitely going to prevent the fish from reaching its "full potential" (as a species), and it will definitely not be one of the larger representative individuals of the species either. on top of that, our size estimates for our bonzai gators are pretty plastic as we never really did measure them exactly.--
--solomon
Click to expand...

I figured you knew which gar that was being talked about; the clarification was more for everyone else plus it gave a bit of a timeline for the growth (or lack thereof).

Do you think that a bonsai alligator gar that just doesn't grow would get larger than an alligator gar that was stunted or vice versa?
 
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