gar trouble

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jefro

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 16, 2007
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I'm having some trouble with my alligator gar. I've had him for about 2 months and he eats anything and everything that I give to him. A couple days ago he started acting a little funny. When I stick food in his face he usually engulfs it without any hesitation. Now, when I put food in there he tries to eat it but he can't, as if he can't open his mouth. He repeatedly bumps into the food and eventually it falls off the skewer and falls to the ground. I know he can open his mouth because I've seen him yawn.
Does anyone know what is going on here?
 
if he yawns it means he can control his mouth,keep it observed
 
How big is the gar and when was the last time he ate? Do you have any pics of your gar?
 
He is about a foot long alligator gar and he ate a little bit today. Every once in a while he will get lucky and manage to slip one piece of beef heart into his mouth. On average he will eat a thin slice every couple of days which is definately not enough for him. Meanwhile, the odd behavior continues. Also, you know how gars come up for air every couple of minutes? He use to do this very calmly, but now he sort of thrashes about and makes a lot of erratic movements when he gets air.
What do you think?
 
does he have any tankmates or has he ever swam into the glass pretty hard?

has he been swimming ok?

the more info you give us the better diagnoses we can try to give you.

thanks,
 
how long have you had this gator and did you get it relatively recently? i had some similar problems with a gator last year, and it eventually did the same thing with half-hearted attempts to eat. does it look like it is losing any weight, and do the eyes seem to bulge at all? unfortunately i was unable to save mine as it eventually starved to near death and i had to euthanize it.

hopefully yours is not going through the same thing. there is a possibility that putting it on antibiotics could help, or in a tank with a UV sterilizer...we'd need to know more before suggesting the former, however--
--solomon
 
I've had him for about 2+ months. I got him around six inches and he's now pretty close to a foot(sucker grew about 5-6 inches in 2 months). He does have a couple of tank mates. There are 2 medium sized dats, blue spot pleco, 2 mono dactylus and a synadontis eupterus. They are living in a 180 gallon tank. I don't have any test kits right now so I wouldn't be able to give you specifics on my water condition. I do however do 30% water changes every week. All of the other fish seem to be doing fine. It's hot over here right now so my water temp ranges from 80-84. I've been feeding him thin slices of beef hearts and FD shrimp. This morning I was lucky enough to get two pieces of beef heart into his mouth and he managed to gulp them down. Just looked at the eyes and they don't look bulgey to me... then again I never really paid too much attention to them before.
Thanks a lot for you input guys.
 
I'm not sure if he's hit the glass hard at all but I do hear him splashing around sometimes. He seems to be swimming OK but he is looking a little skinny now that he's having trouble feeding. Oh yeah one more funny thing, the little pouch under his mouth (around his throat area) seems to be sticking out a little more than usual. This only use to stick out when he was feeding.

Thanks
 
jefro;1033176; said:
I'm not sure if he's hit the glass hard at all but I do hear him splashing around sometimes. He seems to be swimming OK but he is looking a little skinny now that he's having trouble feeding. Oh yeah one more funny thing, the little pouch under his mouth (around his throat area) seems to be sticking out a little more than usual. This only use to stick out when he was feeding.

Thanks
Click to expand...

interesting about the pouch (i believe it's sometimes called the gular pouch) on the fish, unfortunately i believe mine had the exact same issue.

again, at the time i didn't have the means to treat the whole tank with UV, and since it just seemed to be an eating issue i didn't isolate the fish. i tried treating another gar that had similar conditions with antibiotics, but it died after the first day of treatment (but may have been too far gone).

if yours is still eating, you may want to consider treating it with a mild dosage of tetracycline in a hospital tank. richard, what are your thoughts on this? it sounds like the exact conditions my alligator gar went through--
--solomon
 
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