My gar is 6" long right now, he will only eat the live. how do i get him on frozen foods or pellets? it is not good to feed them only live feeders right?
pellets ? Froozen foods?
- Thread starter Clash
- Start date
Clash;1847660; said:
Most feeders are of very poor nutritional value and can carry various parasites and diseases.
i would suggest using a feeding stick. take a long skinny object such as a very thin dowell, piece of acrylic, metal coat hanger (straightened out), etc...attach a small piece of shrimp or whatever to the end of it. lower the shrimp into the tank in front of the fish. if necessary gently wiggle the shrimp around in front of the gar (to mimic live prey). this has worked very well (on most gar species) for me and starving the fish has not been an issue. after getting the fish to take a few pieces off of the feeding stick, you can start dropping them into the tank in front of the fish. eventually he will start taking them on his own.
good luck.
Edit: i should probably have asked what tspecies of gar you have...as i am finding out some of them (Shortnose Gar especially) arent crazy about eating off the end of a stick.
try to get it on pellets and frozen foods to vary its diet. feeders are ok every once in a while just not as a staple diet.
As Jordan said about the feeding sticks...your gar may be unwilling/afraid. I was lucky...I gave my gar some feeder fish the first day I had him (that's what he'd been getting). I tried pellets the next day and he kind of poked at them, mouthed one, and spit it. I tried f/d krill the next day and he ate it fine and hasn't had a feeder since. Mine doesn't like to take off the bottom so if I feed any fresh market shrimp/fish I need to hold it or drop it when he's near (not a problem if he knows it's coming). So anyway just withholding the feeders and trying some krill instead might be enough.
Another thing you can try is drop feeding. Drop a feeder in (I assume he goes right for it?), then maybe another...assuming he goes aggressively for it next time try a piece of shrimp or fish; he may grab it before he even realizes it's not alive. Based on my own and others' here's experience gars aren't that hard to get off of live feeders compared to some other fish. My previous gar would never take any dry/pellet foods but he ate frozen shrimp and fish readily.
Another thing you can try is drop feeding. Drop a feeder in (I assume he goes right for it?), then maybe another...assuming he goes aggressively for it next time try a piece of shrimp or fish; he may grab it before he even realizes it's not alive. Based on my own and others' here's experience gars aren't that hard to get off of live feeders compared to some other fish. My previous gar would never take any dry/pellet foods but he ate frozen shrimp and fish readily.
CTU2fan;1847911; said:
having multiple options available is definitely a good thing. if it's a Florida/Spotted gar (which i'm assuming it is) it should feed off of the stick pretty easily (at least the dozen or so i have kept did). some were a little more difficult than others, but they all eventually did.