Gar compatable with Gar?

[demjor19]

WHAT! is it a permanent ban? i don't totally agree with all his comments but any gar forum without him would have suffered a great loss

His knowledge goes MUCH deeper than Gar. He's a very knowledgeable individual and has much to offer a community such as MFK...if only he could calm down a little and people would take some of the things he says a little less to heart (not everything he says is intended the way people take it). Anyway...this is just my brief understanding of the guy and once again...i'm sure this is not the place to talk about this (or i'm sure we'll have a talking to ).

 

[channarox]

poly's gone?!?!?!?!
what?!
he may have been a little harsh and many things he said were not necessary,but they didnt have to ban him.
he was the most knowledgeable gar person here!

 

[E_americanus]

interesting...i had no idea this was the case. this has happened before in the past and has been rectified, so i would assume the mods here will be able to work something out. he's been one of my closest friends over the years and i would back him up whatever it was (especially reGARding fish forum BS).

that being said, the gar forum has suffered quite the loss. i don't intend on participating until this is fixed. you guys may as well send over your advanced gar questions to AP because i can pretty much guarantee you'll no longer find answers here unless they've already been posted or polypterus comes back. good luck--
--solomon

 

[demjor19]

interesting...i had no idea this was the case. this has happened before in the past and has been rectified, so i would assume the mods here will be able to work something out. he's been one of my closest friends over the years and i would back him up whatever it was (especially reGARding fish forum BS).

that being said, the gar forum has suffered quite the loss. i don't intend on participating until this is fixed. you guys may as well send over your advanced gar questions to AP because i can pretty much guarantee you'll no longer find answers here unless they've already been posted or polypterus comes back. good luck--
--solomon

I agree with most of what was said here, but i find the highlighted text to be especially offending and not true. I personally feel very confident that i can give proper advice in most circunstances we encounter on this forum. sure you guys are the "go to guys" on this site for gar information, but i feel people's questions will still get answered just fine. There are still a few competent members under the gar forum.

 

[E_americanus]

I agree with most of what was said here, but i find the highlighted text to be especially offending and not true. I personally feel very confident that i can give proper advice in most circunstances we encounter on this forum. sure you guys are the "go to guys" on this site for gar information, but i feel people's questions will still get answered just fine. There are still a few competent members under the gar forum.

jordan,

i had no intention of being offensive, so i would guess either i may have been unclear/you misinterpreted my statement or you are mistaken. when i said "you won't find answers here" i was referring to advanced gar-keeping questions, i think there are several here (yourself included) capable of answering most of the general questions that come up. hopefully i have clarified this now.
i should mention, however, that if you are referring to more advanced or higher-level experience questions, then you would be mistaken. many people here have only kept gars for a year or two, and VERY few have extensive experience with all species. this is exemplified with a lot of people giving generic input on the main question of this thread...out of everyone who has thrown out random answers, how many have actually kept all 7 species? how many have kept them for a long time? i'm not trying to sound superior here or anything, but i'm just saying we have a lot of responses to a question regarding keeping (potentially) ALL gar species together. it has been made clear in previous posts that not all species can be treated exactly the same, so individual species info without knowing potential interactions (or accurate effective ways of maintaining the species) is not very useful and dilutes the main question.

everyone is here to learn, and i think the moderators/powers that be have made a mistake in banning polypterus. it's a detriment to this forum, and with his absence a lot of ADVANCED questions will go unanswered OR (worse, and as usually happens) be answered inaccurately (there have been plenty of times where others have jumped in to correct misinformation that runs rampant on fish forums...especially noticeable here in the gar forum).

again, i don't intend on being offensive, just speaking the facts--
--solomon

 

[demjor19]

Solomon,

I understand that i have a lot to learn (we all do), but 99% of the time when i speak it IS indeed from my own personal experiences and it is always to the best of my knowledge. There are two species of gar that i have not kept and one that I really have no desire to keep at the moment. Out of the 5 that i have kept (You guys say there is little to no difference with the husbandry between the Florida/Spotted gars, so i'm grouping them together) I have kept them all together. I also do have a good understanding for the Cuban Gar and im 100% possitive i could keep them with little to no trouble and i would put them in with the group that i currently have. That being said...the advice i gave above is exactly what i would/will do when i find a Cuban and grow him to the appropriate size. Of course this will all be incorporated into the soon to be 8' x 3' tank they will be housed in. You are correct in many ways, but when it comes to giving advice on housing gar together...I feel plenty qualified to give my 2 cents.

Also...you are correct, i have only been keeping gar for a few years, but i feel I have learned a TON of great info in those few years (many thanks to you and Richard, but i have learned nonetheless).

 

[E_americanus]

Solomon,

I understand that i have a lot to learn (we all do), but 99% of the time when i speak it IS indeed from my own personal experiences and it is always to the best of my knowledge. There are two species of gar that i have not kept and one that I really have no desire to keep at the moment. Out of the 5 that i have kept (You guys say there is little to no difference with the husbandry between the Florida/Spotted gars, so i'm grouping them together) I have kept them all together. I also do have a good understanding for the Cuban Gar and im 100% possitive i could keep them with little to no trouble and i would put them in with the group that i currently have. That being said...the advice i gave above is exactly what i would/will do when i find a Cuban and grow him to the appropriate size. Of course this will all be incorporated into the soon to be 8' x 3' tank they will be housed in. You are correct in many ways, but when it comes to giving advice on housing gar together...I feel plenty qualified to give my 2 cents.

Also...you are correct, i have only been keeping gar for a few years, but i feel I have learned a TON of great info in those few years (many thanks to you and Richard, but i have learned nonetheless).

i definitely didn't suggest that you not feel free to give your two cents regarding advice...nor did i suggest it wasn't usually accurate. by all means feel free to do so.

there are things we are all still learning...and from what we are now learning, spotted gars are different than Florida gars...even morphologically, and we are working on some experiments which will further elucidate those differences. what we have suspected generally seems to be the case with most 'spotted' gars in the trade being Floridas...therefore in accounting for species experience, i would not be as quick to lump them together when so little data on spotteds in captivity (home aquaria) seems to exist.

it's also not a matter of preference if you intend or don't intend to keep a particular species...the fact is that whether or not you have (not you specifically, but anyone in general)...therefore any advice given about that species is more or less conjecture or regurgitated information. we all research and repeat information to some extent, that is the nature of learning, but it seriously gets distorted on some of these threads, and i'm merely pointing out that without someone like richard around that more advanced knowledge will surely be lacking; this isn't a matter of opinion, it's fact.

the rate at which people learn about fish these days is surprisingly fast, i will give you that...i have been there too. there is something to be said with sample size as well...what works for one tropical gar will not work for all of them, but a better base of knowledge comes from the husbandry of 10+ individuals (also over time). two Cubans may teach you a thing or two about the fish, but several over time provides a much more reliable dataset. one of the reasons the croc gars (no matter what type) continue to surprise us is that there is such a low sample size out there, and it's hard to draw any concrete conclusions. one of the major points is that there is a lot one picks up from actual experience, and that, for better or worse, is only developed over time.--
--solomon

 

[michael]

I am no expert but also have kept gars and all species but gator or hybrids and have never lost one other than a jumper and one who broke his back. Over the last five years I must have owned over 30 gars. Currently I have in a large community tank of all predatory fish types 2 florida/spotteds, a cuban, and 4 trops. 2 of my trops are as large as 20" and I added a 10" trop without issues a little while back but this guy has now grown to 12". I have never seen gar against gar aggression but I'm sure they all have their own personalities. As long as the size difference isnt too great I would say anything but gator could be housed together. I personally keep a temp of 78-79 and a ph of 7.4 to 7.6