Warning about keeping gars with rays...

[headbanger_jib]

OUCH!!!! Michael
sorry about the loss

 

[xander]

Haha, michael you suck..now I'm afraid to get rays..

Posted on mobile.monsterfishkeepers.com

 

[Kolossus]

Haha, michael you suck..now I'm afraid to get rays..

Posted on mobile.monsterfishkeepers.com

LOL! Now I'm afraid to get tropical gars...

 

[warmouth]

It's been well over a month since the tank went up and this just happened two days ago.

I don't agree with the "establishing hierarchy/territory" logic as opposed to the "gars are just plain old more aggressive in the bigger tank, period", because what you are saying means eventually some of these species that have been killed will work again (since the gars will be settled in and have established dominance), and I do not have that sort of faith after seeing the damage done.

I think the extra space is bringing out different behavior, not just because they are in a new location.

This is all my opinion of course, it could always be a mixture of both.

I had a friend who had 2 shortnose gars, a Bowfin and a channel cat in a 250g......he got a divorce and moved in with another friend of ours but had to downgrade to a 150g which used to house some big Oscars (only had room for one tank in the 2 bdrm aprtmnt); and the same thing happened, his supposedly "peacefull" shortnoses killed his Channel and Bowfin. This is the main reason I believe it was a heirarchy/territory issue......but the truth of the matter is that only the gar know the real reason for sure ! Like Sid I too am sorry for your loss.

 

[warmouth]

Sry to hear. No offence but this is why i luv when people stick together stuff they shouldnt(though rays tend to work) and say ill prove ya wrong. Just a matter of time till they come back saying thier gar or the other fish was killed.

and someone said JDM? seriously we dont need to bring up a horrible fish keeping practise especially when mentioning gar. JDM just kills fish. Nothing more.


PS sticky?

I agree about JDM....thanks, I had to learn the hard way.

 

[Polypterus]

Big tanks do not suddenly make gar act "more natural" .. Really fish tanks in general make them act very un-natural and often more aggressive than they really are. (especially Atractosteus)

in this case they are usually just re-asserting territory and if it kills everything then so be it.. In moving them you changed the dynamics and in doing so the fish reassert themselves. This actually can happen just taking fish out of the tank for a short bit and then returning them to the same tank.

 

[xander]

Interesting point about the Atrac gars being more aggro in captivity. Any idea what the reason behind that is?

Posted on mobile.monsterfishkeepers.com

 

[Polypterus]

Interesting point about the Atrac gars being more aggro in captivity. Any idea what the reason behind that is?

Posted on mobile.monsterfishkeepers.com

I'm not sure what always triggers an Atractosteus to go from calm to psycho. It could be any number of causes from boredom to maybe even seasonal hormonal shifts. Alligators are worst in this reGard of just lashing out out of the blue.. Cubans and trops less so, but they do seem to react to changes in Community dynamics and environment more regularly. One should keep in mind that a gar is a somewhat social / anti-social fish amongst eachother and they are always changing their group social dynamics. Their attitude toward other species is only one of four things... Eat it, run away from it, ignore it or kill it. These attitudes can change slowly or quickly.....

Hope that makes sense... Bit in a rush this AM

 

[Madding]

Big tanks do not suddenly make gar act "more natural" .. Really fish tanks in general make them act very un-natural and often more aggressive than they really are. (especially Atractosteus)

in this case they are usually just re-asserting territory and if it kills everything then so be it.. In moving them you changed the dynamics and in doing so the fish reassert themselves. This actually can happen just taking fish out of the tank for a short bit and then returning them to the same tank.

Okay, I guess my idea was wrong then.

It still seems strange that the gars would begin re-asserting territory about 40 days after being added to the tank without even bothering the other fish up until then.

Edit:

Let's go over the checklist of the four things and decide what made my trops snap:

Eat it - Eat an entire stingray? I'm sure the gars knew this wasn't possible.
Run away - The biggest boys in the tank do not run from anything except each other.
Ignore it - Was good for a while...
KILL IT! - This seems to be our winner! It looks like my trops may have simply switched into destroy mode. Luckily the other tankmates seem okay for now.

 

[KNH]

Madding I don't think you're wrong here. I definitely see different behavior in my large tank compared to my smaller tanks. Fish do reestablish themselves when in new surrondings but I beleive you have more than one factor in play here.