Hello all, I recently became a host for a 12 inch LNG. This fish is extremely interesting, and my kids love watching it, especially when feeding. My question,even after spending days on the forum, is how often and how much should it be feed. Where I got it from never really explained that. I have been using feeder comets, about 1.5-2 inch long goldfish, and was tring to keep up, but when only putting a couple in the tank it would clear them out within a couple mins. My wife had a brilliant idea, she thought that it would only eat as often as it needed to as long as food was present, probably not the right thing to do but I tried this. I purchased 20 feeders, and within 3 days it had eaten all but 4 of them. I am new and this seemed like alot for him to eat, I dont want to over feed it but I also don't want to starve it. If only the dam thing would tell me, LOL. Please help
Longnose Gar
- Thread starter RoughFishAssassins
- Start date
I did read that posting, and almost everyother one that had feed and gar in it. That still doesnt clear it up at all, feed it once aday or everyother day, one fish three fish, big fish little fish, you see what Im saying? I believe there are po=eople on this site that have had gar for a while and I guess I am looking to see what works for them. I could easily feed my gar 5 fish a day and I believe that it would but is it healthy for it? or should it be limited to only a couple aday? This is why I posted the question. I do appreciate the help!!
Feed it every other day as much as it can eat in the span of a few minutes. There really is no single exact answer for the quantity of food that you should give the gar in a feeding, so you'll have to figure out the exact numbers on your own. As far as the size of the food goes, gars' have a preference for long skinny fishes over short deep-bodied fishes and are limited by how far they can open their mouths.
You'll want to switch it to rosy reds/minnows then eventually switch it to a diet consisting of pellets and/or prepared foods (pieces of fish, shrimp, etc.).
12" is still tiny for a LNG and is likely still a YOY. This being the case, your wife is correct. Keep as many feeders in the tank at all times as your B.B. bioload will allow. Your YOY gar will not eat itself to death. I consider two dozen large 3"+ goldfish per week for my LNG nothing more than a snack and a dietary supplement. I feed market shrimp and market fish fillet as a staple diet to all of my Gars. IMO your wife hit the nail on the head, and you are already well on your way to "stunting" the YOY LNG!
Let that machine eat to its content until 16" range. A Florida gar @ 12" is a different story in that they are probably NOT YOY any longer and can be fed at specific times rather than leave the oppertunity open ended.
One needs to ensure that a gar doesn't grow too much during its first year of life in order to prevent long-term stunting on account of the gar putting its energy into preparing for reproduction rather than putting on body size. It's worth noting that many YOY (young of the year) gars from northern populations in the wild will have stopped/soon will stop growing (and eating) because of the drop in water temperature due to the change in seasons, so having at ton of food available for the gar isn't really going to do much other than stunt it further rather than prevent stunting; one only really has the span of a few months when the gar is still in its first growing season to get a ton of growth out of the gar before slowing down the food in order to prevent it from growing and developing too fast.
I have two, bought at about 12 inches last year - now about 14 inches - Get them off of live food as soon as you can - it's just a waste of money - but nice as a "treat." I feed mine pellets every few days - it is never good to overfeed anything, anyway.
All you have to do is put in floating pellets (not sinking) and just wait until they get hungry enough, and they will eat. I have never seen a gar being "difficult" to feed pellets - Sometimes it takes a few weeks, but that's it.
All you have to do is put in floating pellets (not sinking) and just wait until they get hungry enough, and they will eat. I have never seen a gar being "difficult" to feed pellets - Sometimes it takes a few weeks, but that's it.
yours are also longnose gar? it's depend on the fish that it will eat pellet or not. some fish will easily eat pellet but some will not.
If your gars are longnose then they are stunted or underfeeding, a LNG usually end up 18'' or more in their first 2 years!
well, that's on the stickies! LNG grow to at least 18'' in their second years!