What is a responsible "starve off" duration?

[Lepisosteus platyrhincus]

no, but it shouldnt be bad.
it takes alot of patience. it really really really takes patience sometimes. but when they do you wont be able to help but

 

[screaminleeman]

I had success last night using the wooden skewer stick method suggested (with lots of patience) might I add.

I attempted the squid as I said yesterday. A half an hour of attempting to intice my three gars but to no avail. I finally gave up and slapped a dozen feeders into the tank and went on with my feedings.

As I was feeding my RBP's with thawed silversides it struck me that three of the four greedy tankmates of my gars (Clown Knife, Tiger Oscar & Bay Snook) would never eat silversides when I presented them in the past, and the albino channel catfish always just ate them off the bottom is it's good old time overnight.

I stuck a silverside with a skewer through the top of the back so as to make it look like it was swimming. I fully expected that this was simply one of many more attempts that would be required, especially after the gars had just eaten live.

My LNG acted like we have been doing this routine for years! I mean less then no hesitation took the silverside and proceeded to reposition it for the swallow. I could not even believe my eyes. I quickly skewered another and Logan again pounded it like second nature.

EUREKA!

Thanks for the help. I am SO relieved that I can now see light at the end of the tunnel.

On a side note, the two alligator gars still did not budge an inch, but as others have posted mine are far too young to worry about getting off live feeders at this time.

I am also reasonable confident that they will follow suite with the LNG as they did with live Crayfish that they wouldn't touch at first.

If nobody told y'all that your the greatest so far today, let me be the first!

 

[CrazyJ]

awsome, another success story to five me hope. Patience seems to be key.

 

[CTU2fan]

That's awesome. I suspect the biggest challenge would have been finding a way to get the longnose to take food off the stick while keeping your oscar and CK from snatching it up. Once your LNG gets used to the silversides you should be able to drop them in front of him and he'll have the idea.

 

[E_americanus]

congrats...believe it or not, in general, longnoses are amongst the harder species to convert to non-live, so your gators should not be a problem when the time/age/size comes (they are virtual garbage disposals). nice work and keep it up. you'll have them taking food with no need for the stick in no time--
--solomon

 

[CrazyJ]

Dont want to start a new thread for this, but I almost had success last night. I had a krill floating around the tank and put in a coulple rosies. He ate 3 rosies and knew there was a fourth in the tank but couldn't find it. The krill hit the water stream from my filter and was brought down from the surface. My FL (Tony) bit it and held it in his mouth for about 30 seconds, did a llittle repositioning and then spat it out. He kept going up to it after that as it floated around the tank but wouldn't bit it again. I was pretty pumped about it until he spat it out. I think I will try again tomorrow with a silverside. Here's to hoping.

 

[E_americanus]

Dont want to start a new thread for this, but I almost had success last night. I had a krill floating around the tank and put in a coulple rosies. He ate 3 rosies and knew there was a fourth in the tank but couldn't find it. The krill hit the water stream from my filter and was brought down from the surface. My FL (Tony) bit it and held it in his mouth for about 30 seconds, did a llittle repositioning and then spat it out. He kept going up to it after that as it floated around the tank but wouldn't bit it again. I was pretty pumped about it until he spat it out. I think I will try again tomorrow with a silverside. Here's to hoping.

he'll take it eventually...gars will often spit out new food on the first exposure, but after a couple days of trying they'll take it. congrats--
--solomon

 

[Polypterus]

Am I the only one whom finds LNG to be very easy to convert ?
They have always been the easier for me (Hardest have been spotteds). Then I guess it could also be I have worked with LNG for many years.

Never really had an LNG that was an issue.

Biggest LNG issue is getting them enough food for proper growth. you really do need to pack in the food to these fish to get them to grow right and it needs to be early in it's growth. They seem very quick to stunt if early feeding is not great enough. Odd thing is that even a stunted LNG will live for decades, so I'm not sure all is horrible if they do not reach biologic potential. I'm not suggesting one should strive for a Bonsai LNG but they regularly occur in captivity and often they live quite a long life.

Other gar especially the Atractosteus are more sensitive to reduced growth. Lepisosteus osseus, platyrhinchus seem to be more forgiving. Platostomus and Oculatus are questionable. Platostomus in particular seem to need and require a high amount of food to survive and thrive through their first few years. These fish and LNG are definitely a high energy species.

Oculatus.. well I'm not sure...They keep messing with theories and ideas. They seem much like Platyrhincus but also very different. Known location fish (At least from Michigan) are picky and slightly temperamental. these have been the most difficult fish to work with. They are not quick to changes of diet or environment. They do adapt but it is often a slow process.

 

[E_americanus]

Am I the only one whom finds LNG to be very easy to convert ?
They have always been the easier for me (Hardest have been spotteds). Then I guess it could also be I have worked with LNG for many years.

Never really had an LNG that was an issue.

Biggest LNG issue is getting them enough food for proper growth. you really do need to pack in the food to these fish to get them to grow right and it needs to be early in it's growth. They seem very quick to stunt if early feeding is not great enough. Odd thing is that even a stunted LNG will live for decades, so I'm not sure all is horrible if they do not reach biologic potential. I'm not suggesting one should strive for a Bonsai LNG but they regularly occur in captivity and often they live quite a long life.

Other gar especially the Atractosteus are more sensitive to reduced growth. Lepisosteus osseus, platyrhinchus seem to be more forgiving. Platostomus and Oculatus are questionable. Platostomus in particular seem to need and require a high amount of food to survive and thrive through their first few years. These fish and LNG are definitely a high energy species.

Oculatus.. well I'm not sure...They keep messing with theories and ideas. They seem much like Platyrhincus but also very different. Known location fish (At least from Michigan) are picky and slightly temperamental. these have been the most difficult fish to work with. They are not quick to changes of diet or environment. They do adapt but it is often a slow process.

haha, it must be the fish you worked with the most Perun...i've generally found longnoses to be picky, but my bigger Cubans will just flat out not take pellets...sometimes they nab them, but just spit them out...but i digress...

on a flip-side to your work with LNG's, i've found the YOY SpG's to convert pretty easily...i've had a couple that took non-live on the very first attempt, and many now regularly take non-live (some, because they have mysteriously trained themselves to eat off the bottom, like the short-body SpG, and others, like the "hot" treatment experimental fish eat dead fish from the surface...mainly because once those feeders hit the water at those temps they go belly-up almost right away).

it sounds like you know a lot about gars...we should meet up and chat sometime

 

[Lepisosteus platyrhincus]

it sounds like you know a lot about gars...we should meet up and chat sometime