I bet your gars will be fine....they are wild fish after all and live in the Mississippi and other water systems much larger thuan your pond. Remember they drift around like sticks and logs which both protects them from predators and allows them to hunt. Don't worry so much
Gar
- Thread starter mazz3242
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Madding;4742359; said:I agree.^
Your gars will still get plenty big in a pond, just don't look at maximum sizes posted online and then be disappointed with anything less.
Sounds like they have a great home.
I hope that you are right. And to think that I was under the impression that my biggest challenge converting my baby gar into outdoor monster pets would be the extreme slow paced tempering of the Florida gar species to be able to weather a Maryland winter in a spring fed pond environment.
I still think I will have to "scrap" my stupid idea of raising gar for my farm pond and just get out on the Pocomoke in southern MD. in my boat and catch a couple 4'+ Alligator Gar from the countries northern most cyprus swamp.
Now all I need is to somehow get my drivers license back and fix the hood of my PU truck and I'm back in business. Hell Pocomoke, MD is only about a four hour drive south and any Gator Gar caught from there should already be fully aclimated to Md winter water!
i'll right more later, but here are a few bullets for screamin:
- first off, like madding said, just chill out. period.
- chill out some more, it's not that bad.
- you are measuring your gars correctly, from the tip of the snout to the end of the tail (total length) is generally how gars are measured and is an accepted form of measurement. that's how we measure all our fish in our research.
- your gar will NOT reach 6' in length. period. longnose gars rarely reach 6' in length, and it has been stated at least a few times on this forum that the record length of 6' is suspect, and is actually thought to be a hybrid longnose-gator gar. the max size of a LNG is likely more around 5' and some change.
- your gar won't reach 3' this year. if it has reached 24" that is already quite impressive, and your gar may likely be a female. male LNG in captivity usually stay toward the smaller end of the spectrum. only time will tell...if it stays at 24" it may still be a male, but if it does continue to grow, it is likely a female. i would expect a max size of your fish around 3', but likely not much more than that. look up the many posts/details about captive max sizes and size constraints vs wild max sizes.
- we appreciate that you take experienced members' words as sound advice on this forum, but realize that not only are we not always correct (this is all part of a learning process for all of us), we also don't have time to read every single post in extreme detail...we all have other work to be doing and we're not getting paid anything to give advice. so your comments reGARding the experienced members somehow falling short during your hysteria are somewhat disconcerting. all this info listed above is found in discussions on the forum...it may take more research on your end, but the info is there. look it up.
- like others have said, your gar will likely be fine in the pond. there are always risks in keeping pet fish in wild environments, be prepared for that. if you want to increase the chances that there are gars in your pond, just get more gars.
more to come when i get more time...hope you've been able to chill a bit since reading/posting
--
--solomon
- first off, like madding said, just chill out. period.
- chill out some more, it's not that bad.
- you are measuring your gars correctly, from the tip of the snout to the end of the tail (total length) is generally how gars are measured and is an accepted form of measurement. that's how we measure all our fish in our research.
- your gar will NOT reach 6' in length. period. longnose gars rarely reach 6' in length, and it has been stated at least a few times on this forum that the record length of 6' is suspect, and is actually thought to be a hybrid longnose-gator gar. the max size of a LNG is likely more around 5' and some change.
- your gar won't reach 3' this year. if it has reached 24" that is already quite impressive, and your gar may likely be a female. male LNG in captivity usually stay toward the smaller end of the spectrum. only time will tell...if it stays at 24" it may still be a male, but if it does continue to grow, it is likely a female. i would expect a max size of your fish around 3', but likely not much more than that. look up the many posts/details about captive max sizes and size constraints vs wild max sizes.
- we appreciate that you take experienced members' words as sound advice on this forum, but realize that not only are we not always correct (this is all part of a learning process for all of us), we also don't have time to read every single post in extreme detail...we all have other work to be doing and we're not getting paid anything to give advice. so your comments reGARding the experienced members somehow falling short during your hysteria are somewhat disconcerting. all this info listed above is found in discussions on the forum...it may take more research on your end, but the info is there. look it up.
- like others have said, your gar will likely be fine in the pond. there are always risks in keeping pet fish in wild environments, be prepared for that. if you want to increase the chances that there are gars in your pond, just get more gars.
more to come when i get more time...hope you've been able to chill a bit since reading/posting
----solomon
Sigh.. Gator gars should reach five feet. Under ample conditions and enough time they will get there. BUT like I already said IT CAN TAKE DECADES! They will grow to two feet rapidly and then to three feet slightly slower. Then they grow VERY slowly. Like 1/4 of an inch a year. Most captive gars never get there because they are not kept for that long. Most people don't keep a fish for 60 years.
Younglin;4742857; said:
what is your source of information for your statements and what is your experience with these fish? you sound like a broken record because you're not saying anything new compared to your previous statements, and yet you can't provide (or just don't) any verifiable or viable basis for your statements.
how do you know they only grow 1/4" a year? what public or private aquaria do you know of that have kept gator gars for 60 years? how are these fish being aged?
your 2' fast growth vs 3' statement is also not necessarily true, if you had adequately researched this fish before making your blanket (and generally exaggerated or untrue) statements you would know this.
i don't know everything about gars and don't claim to (although myself and some others have had our fair share of experience with the animals), and we are all learning here; we would just request that people research before posting/commenting...or at the very least THINK about what they are saying before making highly generalized (and often untrue) statements.--
--solomon
A study was done on 13 fish native to the united states. They took a scales from a few dozen fish of each species at differing sizes and used them to determine their age. Alligator gars were part of the study and they found that the average age for a 5-6 foot long gar was 16-23 years. My bio professor showed us a Documentary type video on their findings. And the farmed fish being smaller argument may have some merit but I haven't looked into it. So to be fair I'll change my statement. If you caught a 1" wild gator gar and cared for it well for the next 20 or so years then it should reach 5 feet or so.
Younglin;4742987; said:
a few questions and comments...i'm glad you are re-visiting previous statements, but your concluding statement is still completely hypothetical and doesn't take captive factors into account (and is still generally flawed). until you have enough basis for your argument/statements, i would refrain from (relatively) baseless comments/arguments in threads like this...there is already enough misinformation about gator gars out there as it is.
- can you cite this study?
- what was the name of this "documentary-type video"
- gator gar scales are actually not the best for aging the fish, otolith aging is more trusted and what the gator gar experts are using these days (and they compare to scales, etc).
- what was the sample size of this study you are citing?
- so you're basis for your whole argument/statement in this thread is a video you watched in class...i would seriously reconsider that plan of action in posting in the future.
- the farmed fish argument does have merit to it, but feel free to look into it yourself. this information is coming from firsthand observation of fish in the farms along with other studies.
- your last statement is impractical to your argument...i'm sure my AUL will not be 4' long in 80 years either, but there's no practical way to prove that in a forum discussion.
in the end, just carefully research before you criticize others' choice in the fish they are interested in keeping. good luck with your own fishkeeping as well--
--solomon
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