Spotted Gar FINALLY off live...

[Madding]

Not much of a thread, but the true Spotted Gar that I got from Solomon several months ago just finally ate his first piece of tilapia tonight when it sank down and bonked him in the head. He did not take kindly to being hit, stalked it down and ate it. He then proceeded to eat a couple other small pieces. I've been trying for a while to get him to take anything not alive to no avail.

He has been -so- stubborn compared to most gars I've had, so this breakthrough excited me. When you have six tanks up and only one fish out of your entire collection is requiring you to buy feeders, well, it's frustrating.

Your laboratory gars are cold-blooded murderers, Solomon!

I call him Latus, by the way. All my gars have a name that nods to their scientific name.

 

[mqktandy]

nice man congrats. I just got mine to take talipia on monday. And he started hand feeding on tuesday! haha I had to starve him for 3weeks which I felt bad about but oh well all for the best. Now he just waits by the side of the pond with the catfish and I give him goldfish sized strips of talipia fillet

 

[UncleClyde]

I had the same problem with my little florida. I finally started to cut the fillets into long little strands so they floated about the tank kind of like a dead feeder, then he went nuts on them. Now he eats any shape or size chunk I throw in there. lol

 

[Bootler]

mine hand feeds with shrimp

 

[E_americanus]

glad he finally converted for you Madding! that's too bad it took so long! i had some of the lab-spots that converted on the first try to non-live (i used frozen silversides...so it was the closest thing to their live feed), and i have others that have been a bit more stubborn.
of course with so many gars i have not had the time to train all of them, but the few that i keep at home have been both really easy to switch, and another larger one (which I was hoping a smaller fish could help "train") has been really stubborn.
they should all come around eventually, but for now i keep most of the lab fish on live since we have a steady supply of fatheads.

either way, congrats...definitely looking forward to updated pics as he grows!--
--solomon

 

[CrazyJ]

I still have not been able to get mine off live. Had him for over six months now. Tried many different methods now. Starving him had no luck and I can't do that to him anymore, just don't have the heart. I have tried consistently feeding in one spot hoping he would just wolf down anything that I dropped there, no luck. Tried silversides on a skewer and he has ignored that. No I am just keeping him full of goldfish and gonna keep growing him out more, eventually he will become less picky...I hope.

I have however had a breakthrough with him in that he will eat crickets. I added a Green Arowana to the tank that for now will only eat crickets and the gar seems to wolf them down too. Kind of funny watching him eat crickets, they look awkward in his mouth.

 

[SWIM_ERRR]

gar are my favorite

 

[Madding]

gar are my favorite

Yes, ours too.

--

It's been a few days since I posted this thread, and the Spotted Gar has continued to eat tilapia every night since the first time. So funny how fish realize, "hey, this isn't so bad after all," after scoffing at all of your absurd methods of trying for months.

This will definitely make his transition out of the grow-out tank easier. The larger gars and other fish would have never allowed him to even get close to a live feeder in the monster tanks. Live stuff is gone before it hits the water. Now he'll be alright when it's time to meet the big boys.