Feeding juvi longnose

[Grip_Dagen]

Background info/rambling in regular text, questions are in red.

I recently (<1 month ago) captured a YOY longnose gar, presently around 6". "Cig" is doing well...eating well, adapting to captivity, not as spooky as I would've anticipated, etc. He's also eating me out of house and home I have quarantined a number of mosquitofish and have been using those as feeders (feeding them a high quality flake food in an attempt to improve nutritional value prior to feeding to Cig). My intent was to have a breeding population of those guys and have them be self sustaining (laugh if you'd like...I'm rethinking the feasibility of that). I'm quickly running out of feeders and don't want to feed my large breeding females. I will be going and catching a bunch more mosquitofish in the next day or two, at this point probably all that I can find (they're in a 150g stock tank, no real worries of overcrowding), starting the quarantine process all over again with this next batch, and crossing my fingers that at some point they'll be breeding enough for me to keep the population up despite feeding Cig. I know I won't be able to keep up with this forever, and frankly I trust wildcaught more than LFS feeders (meaning this winter I'll be SOL), so I need to start thinking about when and how to wean him over to frozen or pelleted/stick foods. The sticky at the top of this forum suggests ad libitum feeding up to 8", which, I'm guessing based on his growth rate, will easily be by December. Would you recommend starting to offer "dead" foods well in advance of the 8" mark? My concern is that if he's got ad lib feeders he has no incentive to really try frozen or sticks, but I also don't want to starve him by making him wait two days and then offering prepared foods if he doesn't need them yet. I am planning on feeding frozen krill and Hikari Carnisticks, however, I've noticed that he doesn't necessarily strike his fish at the top of the water column (Carnisticks sound like they stay at the top pretty well, but I've never fed this food before)....instead he snaps at them mid-water column. I'm also concerned about the possibility of him ingesting too much air with the carnisticks and causing bloat. Would a slow-sinking pellet be better than the floating carnisticks? I intend to feed the krill to him with tongs, as I have saltwater eels I've previously kept.

Thank you in advance for any advice

 

[pharmaecopia]

Growth rate should be far faster than that. Longnose tend to be one of the faster growing gar species.

Are there other fish housed with the gar? I have found the best way to get them to accept non live foods is by having another fish to "teach" them that the pellets are food. In any case I would start to offer other foods while still relying on feeders while the gar is small.

I have found a floating pellet to work better than a sinking pellet. Freeze dried krill is also an item I have used in the past. It has a strong odor and tends to get fishes attention easily.

 

[Grip_Dagen]

I appreciate the response pharmaecopia!

There are currently no other fish housed with the gar. Suggestions on a good "teacher fish"? I'm not set up to have a large tank (400 gallons+) at the moment, so don't have any other monsters around. Catching and keeping a gar has been something on my bucket list, so when I saw this guy in the river I had to take advantage of the opportunity to catch him. I used to breed saltwater fish and had a reef tank for a number of years, and have a plethora of various sized tanks to choose from, so he will be appropriately housed, I just don't have a collection of monsters going.

Would you suggest the Carnisticks then? I see the size of the sticks is ~3/4"...I suppose I could break them if they're too big. If there's a better/more preferred food on the market I am open to suggestions =)

Other than ease of storage, is there a reason you choose freeze dried krill vs frozen krill?

Thank you again for the response!

 

[pharmaecopia]

In the past I have used other not too aggressive predator species to help train fish. Things like datnoids, ctenopomas, knifefish, etc. Nothing too aggressive as this can lead to more problems. Since I have streamlined my collection and rehomed almost everything except my gars and rays, at this point I usually use one of my other gars to teach the new guys.

Gars tend to like the company of other gars so if your able to catch more and have the space to house them I would definitely recommend it.

I have used carnisticks in the past, and found most fish take to them pretty readily. Overall I just try and provide a varied diet with my fish. Couple different brands of pellets, couple different types of frozen foods as well.

The freeze dried was recommended by another user on here for a transition food between live and pellet foods. The freeze dried krill floats, getting the fish used to taking food from the surface. Nutritionally I am not aware of any real difference between the two. I still use and feed both on occassion.