Please ID this Gar

[KaraJo]

Mate honestly, this is a $300 fish, its not like Im going to let it die...

Along with my Silver Arowana and RTC which all cost $300 each. Its not your little $20 jobby that you buy in the states.

Im sorry people in the past have made you think this way about fish keepers but its not how I keep my fish. I have breeding pairs that live in their own 3ft tanks with nothing annoying them. I do absolutely everything I can to make sure my fish are healthy and well cared for. So maybe next time dont jump to conclusions about people on this forum. But on the flipside to that I know that there are people out there that just buy things cause they look small and then dont know what to do with them later on but I am not one of those people!

We all assume the worse...and its usually true. Wish I had the money to go buy a $300 RTC and just happen to have $300 left over to get a gar...now thats living! Good luck to you and your gar, and hope you get him a nice big tank when the time comes.

 

[demjor19]

We all assume the worse...and its usually true. Wish I had the money to go buy a $300 RTC and just happen to have $300 left over to get a gar...now thats living! Good luck to you and your gar, and hope you get him a nice big tank when the time comes.

Amen! I mean we have quite a few fish that are worth that kind of money, but they were all far from impulse buys! I wish you the best of luck and apologize for jumping on you.

 

[yohan]

you do realize that gators average out at around 5'. and they reach 24" in the first year.

not! id say more. my gator is already 27" and its not over 8 months old.

 

[xander]

not! id say more. my gator is already 27" and its not over 8 months old.

i'd go so far as to guess that it's fed almost daily on either very high protein seafood or feeders(very poor nutrition) which resulted in it's enormous growth but would eventually result in poor health especially when older and probably a premature or early death.

correct me if i'm wrong

 

[demjor19]

i'd go so far as to guess that it's fed almost daily on either very high protein seafood or feeders(very poor nutrition) which resulted in it's enormous growth but would eventually result in poor health especially when older and probably a premature or early death.

correct me if i'm wrong

why would poor nutrition lead to enormous growth? You would get much better growth out of a high quality pellet diet.

 

[xander]

why would poor nutrition lead to enormous growth? You would get much better growth out of a high quality pellet diet.

mass feeding. i'm basing this on fish that display a great variation in terms of quality, p'bass for example. when young, if they are powerfed non stop with feeders, they show extreme growth rates, but remain dull in comparisn with those who were fed with quality foods, but with less quantity.

of course, feeding an equal amt of high quality pellet food would also result in the same, or perhaps larger growth rates. however, from experience it has shown that it is possible for fish to grow reasonably quickly on low quality diets. although they look duller and are unhealthier.

 

[demjor19]

mass feeding. i'm basing this on fish that display a great variation in terms of quality, p'bass for example. when young, if they are powerfed non stop with feeders, they show extreme growth rates, but remain dull in comparisn with those who were fed with quality foods, but with less quantity.

I suppose that could be true...ive never fed my fish feeders long enough to observe this. I know i power fed my Tropical gar on high quality pellets and fresh foods and he grew to nearly 17" in one year. I dont think you could do that with low quality feeders, but i do see what youre saying.

 

[city_of_evil6661]

not! id say more. my gator is already 27" and its not over 8 months old.

then you are powerfeeding or something cuz gators average out at around 24" in their first year.

 

[demjor19]

then you are powerfeeding or something cuz gators average out at around 24" in their first year.

No offense, but i'm sure you're not speaking from personal experience, so where is this info coming from? Besides...how big/old was this fish when he first aquired it? Just because he had it 8 months doesn't necisarrily mean it's 8 months old.

Don't take this the wrong way either Neil (i'm really not trying to bust your balls)...i just dont like when people throw invalid information around.

 

[jonoz]

I dont know about in the states but I would assume its the same but over here from fishing stores we get white bait and Ive begun alternating feeding my aro hikari food sticks and white bait (which is frozen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxiid) would the nutrition from the white bait be similar to that of feeder fish?

Sorry to deviate abit but since were on the topic of food I was told abit that feeding silver aros fatty food increases the chances and speeds up the process of drop eye?

And on that note, with the gar, do they have a fav food? Like I know Ive been told that RTC's love prawns...

Will also add, my gar is currently in the big tank with the aro but hes living in a fry saver, I was going to get some small pvc pipe and make a larger net enclosure for him as he grows and catches up to the arowana size but am unsure of what netting would be aquarium safe, you know all the chemicals things get treated with these days.

Oh also, here are some pics of him having a SUPERVISED playdate with the aro;

And a little pic of happy!