This is my first time breaking a fish of live foods. My LNG is about 7.5" (19cm) and he has been on rosy reds for the month ive had him. Now i am trying to get him on Hikari Carnivore sticks. He had started to show interest but wouldnt take them, at least when im not looking. He hasnt had any feeders in over a week and a half but his belly isnt sinking in or anything. Also this morning i noticed that he had almost de-finned a serpae tetra that i had put in there for him to eventually eat anyway. Does anyone have any tips or tricks for getting him to take the pellets? he does seem interested in the pellets when i put them near his mouth and will swim to look at them but they just sit at the surface for hours until they disappear or i remove them.
Pellet training LNG
- Thread starter Sirtrashcan
- Start date
Does your gar react when you place ur hand over the water surface? Like does it come to the surface of the water as well? If it does drop the pellet right beside it’s mouth.
He doesnt react to my hand, he still seems a bit skittish of me even though i hang out in front of the tank for hours when i get home from work
If you have other fiah that are also wating the pellets just seeing the other fish eat them has been enough in some cases to get my gars off live.
I recently had a very finicky longnose that I first needed to get eating freeze dried krill. Once it started taking that I had it on pellets within a week.
I recently had a very finicky longnose that I first needed to get eating freeze dried krill. Once it started taking that I had it on pellets within a week.
I dont have any other fish with him except a pleco and cory cat, Ive read the Gar Tankmates thread over and over and im looking into a trainer fish. Any suggestions on what to get that can keep up with his growth rate so it doesnt get eaten? Id love to have an arowana but i would be too afraid to keep it with him. He likes to taste test every fish that he can
If kept with tinfoils, there's a good chance the gar will starve to death even if it is trying to eat the pellets! Barbs in general are just too fast-feeding to be good choices with slow-moving methodical fish like gar. Switching a fish from live food to pellets often takes a bit more strategy than just starving it for a week and then tossing in the pellet. Using other fish to lead by example is helpful but not always successful.
Get the fish to the point where it immediately comes forward to eat when you bring the feeders to the tank, and grabs them when they hit the water. At that point offer a freshly-killed feeder, perhaps throwing in one live one, then another and finally the dead one. You want to use small feeders so that the gar remains hungry throughout the feeding period. Toss the fish to him one at a time, and leave him a bit hungry at the end.
After a few sessions like that, you should have him eating dead feeders readily. You can then use the same approach to switch him to frozen krill, pellets, pieces of fillet, etc. It's usually best to discontinue the use of live food entirely after training a fish this way, because occasionally one will "back-slide" a little if he gets a taste of live and may need a brief "re-orientation" to get him back onto his regular food.
Just remember, an aggressively-feeding, enthusiastic gar...is still a pretty slow clumsy fish compared to many other species. They aren't built for competition.
Get the fish to the point where it immediately comes forward to eat when you bring the feeders to the tank, and grabs them when they hit the water. At that point offer a freshly-killed feeder, perhaps throwing in one live one, then another and finally the dead one. You want to use small feeders so that the gar remains hungry throughout the feeding period. Toss the fish to him one at a time, and leave him a bit hungry at the end.
After a few sessions like that, you should have him eating dead feeders readily. You can then use the same approach to switch him to frozen krill, pellets, pieces of fillet, etc. It's usually best to discontinue the use of live food entirely after training a fish this way, because occasionally one will "back-slide" a little if he gets a taste of live and may need a brief "re-orientation" to get him back onto his regular food.
Just remember, an aggressively-feeding, enthusiastic gar...is still a pretty slow clumsy fish compared to many other species. They aren't built for competition.
So, i should be restricting his access to live feeders at this point? He has had constant access up to now as I have seen posted here in several places.
Once he is acclimated and feeding, yes. Training him onto pellets will be pretty tough if he has constant access to live food. Like any other fish, you want him hungry during the training period. If the only food he gets is that which you provide him at feeding time, he will begin the learning process of associating you with food. That's the first step to successfully switching him to pellets.