Flordia/Spotted Gar Q

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MCHRKiller

Feeder Fish
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Aug 20, 2007
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Hello :)

Im pretty much re-vamping my 150G tank:headbang2My LFS has a pair of flordia/spotted gars...they are being shoved in a 20G long tank and the largest is probably about 13" while the smaller is about 8". I know horrible right? Well Ive always been intrested in gar but never seen any for sale around here. How long would the 8" last in a 72L*20W*24T tank? I have read that the species rarely gets much over 18" in the home aquaria....so if that is true then Im sure it would be fine permantly. But Id like to not have to bother upgrading until I am moving out because my current tank weighs enough muchless a larger one. But I am eyeballing a 72*30*24" tank if it ever came down to an upgrade being a must it could be done sooner, but Id prefer not to;)
 
I think you should be okay for at least one. If you really want, two might be a little pushy and make upgrading come a lot sooner. I personally have been entretaining the idea of a square tank. But anyway they need to turn easily and have room to dart about.
 
lol...they are not flexible fish, so yeah, they would need turning room. of course, a 150 would be much better then what they are in and most likely bigger then what most people would put them in. I dont think it is a matter of 2 being overstocked, it is more of a matter of the tank only being 24" wide. They do slow down in growth at about 16-18", but this doesnt mean growth doesnt continue. Most likely an uprade would be needed, but not for some time.

Gar shouldn't have enough room to "dart about" in the sense that they can gain some speed going from one end to the other. If they gain anough speed and hit the glass, it is very possible for them to break their backs. you can actually have too big of a tank in this instance, but for these fish, I would say atleast a 150 for now, with some plans to upgrade eventually to atleast a 3' wide tank.
 
i believe richard made a good post about this sometime back, but i'll just review it briefly:

gar actually are quite flexible fishes...if you've ever tried to net a tiny YOY individual or a 4' longnose you will realize this.

their heads are the main structures which are inflexible, other than that, their bodies are relatively flexible (for a crude comparison, look at bichirs' bodies).

anyway, that being said, yeah, you don't want to give a gar enough room to really pick up speed and hit the glass, at the same time, you don't want the tank to be so small that it hits the glass with little effort (it takes some time for them to realize the boundaries of the tank).

opt for 24"-30" and no less for the long haul, for a short time the smaller one would be fine in 20" wide, and probably the larger of the two for a short time as well. good luck--
--solomon
 
E_americanus;1400453; said:
i believe richard made a good post about this sometime back, but i'll just review it briefly:

gar actually are quite flexible fishes...if you've ever tried to net a tiny YOY individual or a 4' longnose you will realize this.

their heads are the main structures which are inflexible, other than that, their bodies are relatively flexible (for a crude comparison, look at bichirs' bodies).

anyway, that being said, yeah, you don't want to give a gar enough room to really pick up speed and hit the glass, at the same time, you don't want the tank to be so small that it hits the glass with little effort (it takes some time for them to realize the boundaries of the tank).

opt for 24"-30" and no less for the long haul, for a short time the smaller one would be fine in 20" wide, and probably the larger of the two for a short time as well. good luck--
--solomon
Click to expand...

I have netted 1" longnose gar from the wild, as well as seen (not caught, but seen in person from my dad) a good 3' longnose. As I would agree, they have a flexibility to them, I don't think they should be placed in a tank that has a width that is the same length as them or a tank not as wide as they are long. If you compare their body structure to that of, say, an arowana, I would have to say such a fish as that would be alright (not comfortable, but would do better) in a tank not as wide as they are long whereas with a gar, this would be considered cruel and such a gar could have difficulty turning around. Our gar are much more "stiff" then a lot of our other fish.

I failed to notice his tank was in fact 20" wide, not 24". In that case, I will agree in saying you should be alright with the smaller one for a while since he should reach a point where his growth will slow significantly.
 
Well I wasn't saying that you should get your gar to dart about I was just trying to say that they dart and like to have room to do things like darting to get food. And for one I have noticed that my gar seems to understand the idea of his tank and does not do some sort of bird on glass action. But hey!! Maybe my gar is just really smart.
 
fishy fishy fishy fish;1400746; said:
Well I wasn't saying that you should get your gar to dart about I was just trying to say that they dart and like to have room to do things like darting to get food. And for one I have noticed that my gar seems to understand the idea of his tank and does not do some sort of bird on glass action. But hey!! Maybe my gar is just really smart.
Click to expand...

as i said, it just takes time, not a lot of time, but when you move a gar from a 20g to a 120g, it may not realize the boundaries right away.

that being said, you have other issues to think about if you're keeping gars in california--
--solomon
 
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