Been into gars for a long time now just about the same when I satrted keeping bichirs and lungfish. It's just I never post more about gars as I only have Florida and longnose gars which are kinda common to see. I ordered some 20x shortnose gar before but they all died during shipment and now the person I order them from never reply back ti me anymore. Just the cuban gar and the soptted and I'm good to go with gars. Been wanting to have a gator but they just grow to big for me, but I don't mind hybrids such croc gar type I. II or III.
That would depend on the cichlid aggression. Gars don't fight back and when they get harass they like to retreat. If the cichlid is way to aggressive and harass the gar, the gar might get stress out to dead or bump into the glass and broke it's back or snout to the impact.