Behavior

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g_morin

Candiru
MFK Member
Nov 29, 2005
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Brooklyn
i bought a florida/spotted gar on tuesday this week, he is in a tank with some pbass which is going pretty well a little chasing game but no bite marks on the gar or anything. however the gar has been chilling on the bottom alot is this normal behavior? i know alittle about gars not enough to make a decision wheather this is stress or normal, thanks in advance
 
they do chill at the bottom once in a while or most of the time(some of them)
and yup they do get stressed if there are other big fish
mine used to get stressed when they were new and there were some GTs there
but now as they hae grown a little and are accustomed to their tank mates they are just doing great
 
well i hope it will pass i dont want him not to move at all... and he hasnt really eaten either. My cousin said his took almost a week to eat after being put into the new tank? is that normal
 
holy crap! a month, he isnt going to get very big that way haha. Ok so he is ok with the exception he is the new fish on the block. No he isnt that small i shouldnt have to worry about my peacock bass (orino) picking on him a little right? nothing major just the occasional chase... i figured the gar has teeth he shoudl be able to stand up for himself if he gets tired of it. Cause the pbass is smalle rin length than the gar?
 
With my Spotted Gar, he ate and excepted non-live foods about 2 min after I put him in the tank after the drip method. He was only fed live feeders and I started him off on market shrimp. His color was real light for about a day or two. He was the biggest in my tank and maybe that is why he was stressed for a short time.

My Gar is constantly swimming and seeking food. I would say he probly chills for about 10% of the time (except when the lights are out, then he is swim-less). When I walk in the room Roscoe (My 4yr old named the Spotted Gar:D)
follows me in the tank. What ever side of the room I'm on, he swims most on that side of the tank, swimming from top to bottom. And when I chop up the shrimp on top of the tank (on a plastic plate), Roscoe swims mid water and waits for the food and starts snapping (usualy strikes out and misses 4 out of 5 attempts to catch the shrimp, but is getting better). So I would say that my Gar is very active and has a nice personality:D.
 
actually, bass and gar just dont make a good combo. because of their boisterious behaviour, the bass might bully the gar pretty often, resulting in a skittish not so stable gar. basses behaviours sometimes send the gars speeding off into tank walls, which occasionally end up with broken backs on the gars side. the bass would also probably out-compete the gar for food.

all that said, i mean a gar probably could live with a bass, but as a result you might not have a very happy/confident gar.
 
well with any luck all will be fine, only reason i considedered the pairing is because ive seen alot of guys with pbass with gars and hadent read any negative things... only negative were with the aligator gar. So that being said i hope things pan out ok, i just wanted to make sure his behavior is normal for being a new member to a tank and not something worse...
 
for every success story of bass & gar combi there're probably a couple more failure stories of a bass+gar combi. however each fish has a different personality. so good luck to your attempt.
 
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