Florida spotted gar advice

[triathloncoach]

I have a tank with 2 red eared sliders, a large mouth bass, a bull head catfish, a blue gill sunny, a pleco and 2 spotted gar. All is well. The gar are the most mellow of the inhabitants. They are eating only live food - minnows and worms - and I have to put in more than necessary because the bass and the catfish will eat everything. And I need a larger tank. It's 120 gallons. Lots of filtration, lots of water changes. No gravel - nothing on the bottom of the tank

 

[E_americanus]

i dont know a bout them in tanks but theres a cannal behind my house and its loaded with them...although i could be confusing it with the florida gar but anyway thay are boring fish thay just sit there all day and you cant evan catch them other than snagging them

talk about a useless post ^^^

to the OP - skipping the gar & arowana combo is definitely the safer bet, but it can be done, so you are getting correct info from both sides here. i have kept them together successfully, but that doesn't mean i would recommend it to someone beginning with gars.

that being said, if you get a gar of similar size to the arowana you can observe for a few months and see how things go. the main issue is if you have a particularly aggressive arow and it spooks the gar into breaking its back (an issue with keeping gars in captivity). there is also the risk of the gar tearing up the arow from time to time, but again...observe and learn if you are going to risk the combo.

i would HIGHLY recommend AGAINST the african lungfish with any of those fishes. african lungfishes are quite unpredictable, and will randomly and unpredictably attack tankmates. they have a powerful bite and a single attack may be enough to mortally wound a tankmate. these fishes are best kept in a species only tank. other fishes often nip apart the lungfishes delicate fins as well, so there is some aggression in the other direction.

again, your best bet if you are going to try the combo is to get a Florida gar of comparable size to your arowana (and probably the CK too). African arows are hard to come by, but they tend to get along with gars better than silver/black/scleropages arows. good luck--
--solomon