They are mainly on dry krill as a staple diet; but I also occasionally throw frozen bloodworm cubes at each one to make sure they all get fed... Feeder fish, lizards, crickets, you name it... key word is variety...which makes them curious whenever a new food is introduced, I even fed mine liver pieces from dog food a few times. trick is to drop it in front of them as gars don’t seem to have the best eye sight.. Fasting them for a day or two every now and then also seems to keep their appetite running.demjor19;1094494;1094494 said:
Ultimate Monsters
- Thread starter Jakdarippa
- Start date
No tankmates thats for sure, just snails to clean up after them..cichlid savage;1094922;1094922 said:WOW before he hit the gravel. That must have been like a gormet dinner to them. An expensive 1 at that.
Jakdarippa;1094969; said:
gars actually have very good eyesight, it's just that they are instinctively drawn to feed on food that moves. training them past this using the techniques you have mentioned effectively gets them on the more or less 'inanimate' food items.
usually gators require much less training as they are relative garbage disposals as far as gars are concerned. on the species continuum, it's often longnoses that are the toughest to get onto prepped foods, however, with proper technique (again incorporating what you have mentioned), any gar can be trained.
again, impressive specimens you have there
----solomon
Jakdarippa;1094969; said:
all of my gar are on a staple of market shrimp and various fish fillets. i also feed fd krill, pellets, and an occasional feeder fish. i usually drop the shrim directly in fron of my gar too. that way i know each of them got fed.
i agree w/ E_Americanus. i think they have very good eye sight. mine can all spot the food from across the tank.
E_americanus;1095010; said:
I agree with americanus, but due to the shape of their head they dont seem to see well upfront and thats why they tilt their head to the side when they strike, the eyes on the side of the head provide 20 degrees of binocular vision to judge distance and attack with accuracy. At night its a different story, with the pupils fully dilated, sharpness of vision is comparable to that of an owl's. Just like cats, gars have a thin layer of special reflecting tissue behind each retina called tapetum lucidumm which acts like a mirror to concentrate all light when its dark (a definite advantage for a night active predator). This also causes fire red eyeshine at night when caught in a flashlight beam..
REFERENCE: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7866770&dopt=AbstractPlus
DownUnder;1094449; said:
The only thing more monstrious, then these beasts is the African Tiger Fish.
Jakdarippa;1095865; said:
nice citation
i have that paper but haven't read it in a while that being said, vision is definitely a factor with a gar striking at an object, but the reasoning behind their striking from the side as opposed to 'just off the bow' is more a function of the shape of the snout and jaws...it doesn't make any sense for them to 'chomp' down at something directly in front of them, it would allow prey to escape and take a lot of energy (also against the resistance of the water).
swiping from the side utilizes the full range of the jaws, and can be done much more quickly (less resistance from the water since the jaws aren't opening straight up and down).
this is a major factor as to why gars swipe from the side--
--solomon
