help switching to none living food

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kzimmerman

Piranha
MFK Member
Mar 18, 2009
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delmar md
So, I've got a 10" florida. It's eaten goldfish, minnows, and little tiny centrarchids. I have been trying for the last several months to get it to accept non living food. I took a small piece of tilapia, cut it into a triangular shape, and threaded a piece of monofilament though it. I jiggled it around by his nose, I made it swim around, and then past his nose, and I left it in the tank, suspended in some current to make it dance. He just won't eat it. I've tried dozens of times, but no go, he just wants to stay with the feeders. I know that some people on here advocate a starvation period before attempting this, but I don't really want to do that, especially since others advocate against it. So, any tips on getting a reticent gar to take nonliving?
 
i can only really think of starving it, or you could also try killing the feeder before feeding, could help to promote the feeding
 
Try this:

BOTR;5020790; said:
As stupid/simple as this sounds, it generaly always ends up working for me with Gar.

I had about 200 minnows in quarenteen. I sectioned the gar off into a small area of my tank. I dumped 50 +/- in there with the gar. The next morning all were gone. I then dumped another 50 +/-. In a few hours came back, all were gone. I then started dropping in minnows one at a time and waited untill the last one was gone untill I added another. I did this for 2 days. By this point, the gar would come to the surface when I approached, ready to be fed. I then just started tossing in Hikari 5-10 sticks at a time. One by one they started taking them. Took about 2 days untill they all had eaten them. Suprisingly, the smallest one was the first to take, now they all eat them untill I stop feeding.

Floating Hikari Sticks by the way.
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I personally got my previous indoor gars to accept fish fillets and shrimp by wiggling a piece of shrimp or fish at the surface at feeding time. The gars eventually took the food and continued to eat that food on subsequent feedings. Try to cut the food into a long thin strip that's about as long and wide as the gar's mouth.
 
Try wiggles way. At 10 in do not starve it. U will stunt it.

Posted on mobile.monsterfishkeepers.com
 
1_2manyrosies;5022810; said:
The starvation period worked best for me, i also had to try multiple foods, in the end my knife ate hikari dried whole krill
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what works for a knife fish is generally going to be irrelevant here on the gar forum.--
--solomon
 
BOTR;5024152; said:
Another method I have used in the past:

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=288245

I know it wasn't for Gar, but for one that was hard to ween off of live.
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good link man, i should clarify, given my earlier post, that techniques used for other predatory fishes aren't completely inapplicable to gars...they often times to transfer to an extent.

i meant to moreso comment on the post in quotes as they just said they starved their knife fish (suggesting they had no experience with that method or its consequences with gars).

good luck to the OP, and please do a search and check out the other links others have posted...this topic is probably second in popularity only to the "please ID my [Florida] gar" threads--
--solomon
 
I did search, didn't come up with anything that I havn't tried though. One thing, this gar seems to eat only at night, don't know if that makes a difference or not.
 
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