Newbie tank for young Gar

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TheAlmostPanda

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Dec 15, 2011
92
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Los Angeles or Bombay
Hello everybody, I am in need of help. Last week me and my brother bought a small gar, it is of unknown species (will post good pics asap, any specific areas I should photograph?) anyway it is about 6 inches long. We have been feeding it small minnows and tetras but we want to train it to eat dead food. We also know it needs a large, well planted, tank to flourish. We only expect to keep the gar for one year and then it will be turned over to a more capable owner. How big of a tank should we get, since we are in India cost is not really a factor as a 5' by 1' by 2' tank costs only 25 to 40 dollars to be made. However cheaper is better but not at the price of the fish's discomfort. Lastly any tank mates we can keep with the gar? currently it has a walking catfish and pleco in the tank but the catfish is too aggressive for the more mellow gar. The nicer shops have Arowanas and a variety of Oscars and the like, which plants and animals are well suited for the Gar?
Thanks for your time!
 
[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]I would get a tank that's at least 18 to 24 inches deep as gars can grow to over a foot relatively quickly. I have a clown knife, tinfoil barbs and stingrays with my gar with no problems, but my tank is much larger than what you're talking about. Appropriate size barbs, bala sharks, less aggressive cichlids, a school of silver dollars, red tail sharks, upside down catfish, clown loachs, a dragon goby,and bichirs are all good choices for the gar with a 5 foot long tank by 18-24 inches. I would stay away from oscars and arowanas unless you plan on getting a much larger tank.
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We need to know first what type of gar it is before you run off buying tank, also, cheaper tanks mean that they use thin glass to build, be sure the glass thinkness is adequate for a large tank size
 
as you are in India I would guess it is a Florida gar! a tank about 5'x2' footprint is good for a very long time!
 
I would not keep it with the pleco.
 
Yeah 5'by 2' or 4' by 3' where the numbers that me and my brother where throwing around, The pleco and Walking catfish (aggressive little bugger =D ) will be sepperated from the gar. Knife fish are a can do but people around here only have 6" ghost knifes... will it be to small? again photos will come as soon as I can get a hold of my friends DSLR. What plants or substraits to you guys use with your Gar? What do you feed them?
 
TheAlmostPanda said:
Yeah 5'by 2' or 4' by 3' where the numbers that me and my brother where throwing around, The pleco and Walking catfish (aggressive little bugger =D ) will be sepperated from the gar. Knife fish are a can do but people around here only have 6" ghost knifes... will it be to small? again photos will come as soon as I can get a hold of my friends DSLR. What plants or substraits to you guys use with your Gar? What do you feed them?
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I wouldn't bother trying a knife fish that small let alone any knife fish; the gar will certainly outgrow it in no time at all and may attack it even if it is too big to eat. Pretty much any aquatic plant can be used; sand is your best bet for your substrate, though. As for food, try to get it on pellets but do not starve it to do so; it can also be fed pieces of fish, whole dead fish, market shrimp, and other various seafoods.

I recommend taking a look at the stickies; they'll answer pretty much any further questions that you might have on basic gar care.

rup_pilot said:
I would get a tank that's at least 18 to 24 inches deep as gars can grow to over a foot relatively quickly. I have a clown knife, tinfoil barbs and stingrays with my gar with no problems, but my tank is much larger than what you're talking about. Appropriate size barbs, bala sharks, less aggressive cichlids, a school of silver dollars, red tail sharks, upside down catfish, clown loachs, and a dragon goby are all terrible choices for the gar no matter what size the aquarium is. I would stay away from oscars and arowanas unless you plan on getting a much larger tank.
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There, I fixed that statement for you.

Madding said:
I would not keep it with the pleco.
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x2.
 
Thanks for the help! Getting the tank this weekend, I will document the aquascaping, tips and tricks are most certainly welcome! Once again thank you for getting me up to speed.. One last think, how big (ie what rating and type) of a filter to you recommend. I've used the external type ones before with great success.
 
filtration is all up to the owner and how they prefer to filter their tanks and what works for them and their fish. personally I'm a biological filtration geek.. and try to aim for a 8-10x turnover rate approx in all my tanks no matter what the stocking will be, as this facilitates ime enough water flow to keep "dead zones" to a minimum and allow for maximum flow for bio/mechanical filtration to take place. as well as not blow your fish around. at that size I would deffinately opt for a wet/dry type set-up. in the DIY section of the forum you can find just about any type of home-made set-ups in that and other styles of filtration, or buy one.
 
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