Younglin;4736895; said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYXUBLn8XsE
This isn't the original video I was talking about but it does show how big they can get in captivity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DukgAQuFTDw&feature=related
Same fish, different video. Don't know if its true but I was told they were raised from babies. Again, this isn't the video I was talking about. Although it's rare, they CAN get 7 feet in captivity. Under the right conditions of course. They SHOULD get five feet. But remember I mean five feet in their life time. They grow very slow after the first two years or so. It can take a decade for them to reach that size.
i'm not saying it's impossible for a public aquarium to raise them to 7' from 1", but it would be very rare. until you have some actual verifiable proof, however, it's just your word on an internet forum (more or less like the rest of ours).
that being said, it IS still very rare, and it does NOT mean if your gar doesn't get to that size that you are doing something wrong. there are gator gar farms in LA where YOY gators don't reach 5', and they are definitely doing better than any of us could do in private aquaria.
for the record, most big public aquariums get their gators beyond YOY stages, with many of them picking them up at 2-3' or more.
no, you should not take on a gator if you can't properly care for it, but if yours doesn't reach 5' it doesn't necessarily mean you are doing something wrong....just like if your Cuban gar doesn't reach 6', or your tropical 4', or your spotted gar 3'.
and even though you are somewhat factoring in lifetime growth, the max lifetime of most gars exceeds the lifetime (thus far) of this forum, however in captivity other things happen to fishes, and it's rare to keep them alive as long as some have here (like the media lounge example of 11yrs for a FL gar...let alone gators, which can live for over 60 years).
again, exaggeration of the facts and practical information on gator gars seems to run rampant whenever the species comes up on this forum (just like the usual pics of bubba and the giant gators).--
--solomon
Solomon Knows more about gar than everyone combined on MFK (minus Richard) and your facepalming? He's collected and studied more gar than you could possibly imagine. Just because you find one Fish on Youtube that is larger than the average captive kept gar doesn't mean that that is the norm especially in a home aquarium or zoo aquarium.