Making Crocodile Gars

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pharmaecopia

Polypterus
MFK Member
Aug 21, 2010
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Ontario, Canada
**This thread is an offshoot of a discussion in another thread hence the separate thread.**

E_americanus said:
keep in mind "farmed" is a broad term...they could very easily be importing large LNGs from the states and then strip-spawning adults to get the young...not a hard thing to do with the proper space and resources--
--SRD
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And that just brings to mind the croc gars. Wish someone would start trying to make some of those again.
 
Wiggles92 said:
Send me some breeding-age gars then. :thumbsup:
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That's easier said than done. Should have that covered with longnoses. The two 28"ers should be sexually mature. No clue on possible sex though. Big trouble would be sexually mature gators. My oldest ones should be approaching 5 years old, and this still might not even be sexually mature for a male, never mind the 10 years old that I've heard of for females.
 
pharmaecopia said:
That's easier said than done. Should have that covered with longnoses. The two 28"ers should be sexually mature. No clue on possible sex though. Big trouble would be sexually mature gators. My oldest ones should be approaching 5 years old, and this still might not even be sexually mature for a male, never mind the 10 years old that I've heard of for females.
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That's why I'm hoping that I have female longnose gars & male alligator gars. I think I might buy up a few big old Florida gars come spring just to add them to the mix; they would serve as the test run to see if gars would successfully breed in that pond.
 
Wiggles92 said:
That's why I'm hoping that I have female longnose gars & male alligator gars. I think I might buy up a few big old Florida gars come spring just to add them to the mix; they would serve as the test run to see if gars would successfully breed in that pond.
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Sounds cool, but would it be easier to try with shortnoses? I'd think they'd be better as a gar to guage how well they'll breed. Should be more cold tolerant than the floridas. And I think I have read that they mature sooner than floridas. Just not sure howmuch harder it would be to track down some larger shorties as opposed to floridas.
 
pharmaecopia said:
Sounds cool, but would it be easier to try with shortnoses? I'd think they'd be better as a gar to guage how well they'll breed. Should be more cold tolerant than the floridas. And I think I have read that they mature sooner than floridas. Just not sure how much harder it would be to track down some larger shorties as opposed to floridas.
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I figure that big Florida gars are easy enough to come by that I shouldn't have any issues procuring a small group of them; I haven't had any luck getting a shortnose gar of any size, let alone a group of adult shortnose gars.

Cold tolerance would be an issue, but I'm willing to put that to the test because the gars would be given at least the entire summer & fall to prepare for winter. I might end up losing all of the Florida gars over the course of the winter, but at least I would learn that they aren't going to be a viable species for the hybrid breeding program; I would expect any individuals that do survive to breed again and produce offspring that might tolerate the cold a bit better.

Regardless of all that, I still need to determine the maximum adult gar capacity for this pond as I don't want to overstock it and lose the whole group in a massive die-off. I had been stocking large numbers of minnows on a frequent basis during the warmer months, but I doubt that those and the smallmouth bass & sunfish in there will be enough food for a large group of gars.
 
I guess that sort of decides it if you haven't been able to find shortnoses. Given enough time they would hopefully adapt to the temps.

How many would you be trying to track down? I'd think 6 or so would be the number to shoot for as it almost guarantees having both males and females.
 
pharmaecopia said:
I guess that sort of decides it if you haven't been able to find shortnoses. Given enough time they would hopefully adapt to the temps.

How many would you be trying to track down? I'd think 6 or so would be the number to shoot for as it almost guarantees having both males and females.
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I figured six adult Florida gars would be a good number to start with. I doubt that they'll consume anywhere near as much food as a smallmouth bass of the same size, so I'm not too worried about ensuring that the food supply in the pond is adequate to support the extra gars; more alligator gars could be tricky, though, since they get so big & eat a ton.
 
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