Cheapest food for gars

[pharmaecopia]

salmon has lots of oils and will make a mess of water. be prepared for lotsa water changes

I second this.

My florida gars are fed a mixture of sinking pellets, smelts, tilapia, shrimp, kingworms, etc. Pretty much any meaty fod item that I can get for a decent price.

My bigger guys main died is made up of squid, sardines, mackeral, and algae wafers. They also get fed a veriety of different fillets depending on what is on special.

 

[screaminleeman]

See if you can get "fresh" fish and seafood (non-frozen) that is a day or two past its sell by date from a local supermarket. They might give it to you for next to nothing or even free if you explain that it's for a fish rather than for personal consumption. The gar isn't going to care if it's not super fresh, and you generally have one week after the sell-by date to eat the fish and seafood, so it shouldn't hurt it (someone please correct me if this is incorrect).

While I do agree with the latter, it should not hurt the gar, I have to TOTALLY disagree with the former!

I have with every gar (LNG and Florida, and the prohibitive extreme vast majority of every other fish species) seen an undeniable EXTREME preference for FRESH food! Seriously, experiment and put a fresh batch with a past prime batch of fish and see if your fish DO NOT select the fresh (as if by magic!).

The true gar may be the worst (or best depending upon you perspective) at rejecting older food. The nostrils on true gar are at the end of the long snout a greater distance from the mouth than most other species of fish. They also hunt in stealth mode rather than quick strike swallow method.

This gives gar a far better chance to determine the relative "freshness" of its prey and either disregard or release from it's jaws before entering it's mouth.

I have dozens of times seen (and never once not seen) a gar refuse to eat a dead fish that it killed itself earlier. It knows it escaped it 10 minutes prior and is now dead from the struggle, but it's dead now and not "fresh" enough to eat!

 

[Wiggles92]

salmon has lots of oils and will make a mess of water. be prepared for lotsa water changes

Valid point. I probably should have mentioned that fish with white meat such as tilapia are preferred over fish with red meat such as salmon.

While I do agree with the latter, it should not hurt the gar, I have to TOTALLY disagree with the former!

I have with every gar (LNG and Florida, and the prohibitive extreme vast majority of every other fish species) seen an undeniable EXTREME preference for FRESH food! Seriously, experiment and put a fresh batch with a past prime batch of fish and see if your fish DO NOT select the fresh (as if by magic!).

The true gar may be the worst (or best depending upon you perspective) at rejecting older food. The nostrils on true gar are at the end of the long snout a greater distance from the mouth than most other species of fish. They also hunt in stealth mode rather than quick strike swallow method.

This gives gar a far better chance to determine the relative "freshness" of its prey and either disregard or release from it's jaws before entering it's mouth.

I have dozens of times seen (and never once not seen) a gar refuse to eat a dead fish that it killed itself earlier. It knows it escaped it 10 minutes prior and is now dead from the struggle, but it's dead now and not "fresh" enough to eat!

My point was that they'll still eat it.

Fish is considered to still be fit for human consumption two days after the sell-by date if it has been refrigerated or for a much longer period of time if it was frozen.

Giving the gar food that's a day or two past the sell-by date is no different than giving them frozen fish or seafood (definitely not fresh) yet gars will gladly eat the frozen food once it has been thawed out.

Comparing a gar that is eating live food and refuses to eat previously killed food isn't a very good comparison considering that gars will willingly take fish fillets and such which were definitely not killed by the gar and aren't fresh when compared to a still living fish.

 

[BigBubba]

i feed mine frozen round lake smelt from the asian market. they are like $1.50- 1.99 a pound. i can get the 11lb case for $20 cash. and it lasts for months in the freezer. i just thaw whet i need and dump it in. when the top feeders are done i pop the swim bladder in the remaining floating smelt and they drop to the bottom for the polypteruses. they do leave an oily slick on the surface of the water. but it goes away when i turn the pump in the wet dry back on and the surface skimmer eats it up.

 

[Polypterus]

While I do agree with the latter, it should not hurt the gar, I have to TOTALLY disagree with the former!

I have with every gar (LNG and Florida, and the prohibitive extreme vast majority of every other fish species) seen an undeniable EXTREME preference for FRESH food! Seriously, experiment and put a fresh batch with a past prime batch of fish and see if your fish DO NOT select the fresh (as if by magic!).

The true gar may be the worst (or best depending upon you perspective) at rejecting older food. The nostrils on true gar are at the end of the long snout a greater distance from the mouth than most other species of fish. They also hunt in stealth mode rather than quick strike swallow method.

This gives gar a far better chance to determine the relative "freshness" of its prey and either disregard or release from it's jaws before entering it's mouth.

I have dozens of times seen (and never once not seen) a gar refuse to eat a dead fish that it killed itself earlier. It knows it escaped it 10 minutes prior and is now dead from the struggle, but it's dead now and not "fresh" enough to eat!

Wait what ??????

 

[szymon328]

my gars getting hikari carnivore pellets, krill, shrimp, will be getting tilapia once its bigger, and im also breeding guppies and platys for him cuz predatory fish need some sort of live food and i absolutely despise gold fish as feeders

 

[kamilusoof]

starve your gar for a week and feed it any thing that is 'meaty'..
cut the food 1" long n preffered width to fit in you gar's mouth.then hold it out with your hand n submerge it half way n gently shake it at the same spot(dance the meat!!!lolz)the gar will find it irristable n eat it
wrked with my spotted GAr!!

 

[Spiritofthesoul]

starve your gar for a week

If its an adult gar, its possible.
If yoy, then No