Where to get A. Spatula
- Thread starter Copper2
- Start date
Any exotic pet store really,or online,just keep in mind this fish grows well in excess of 5 ft,do u have room for this fish NOW?
No, it’s not for now. There’s a private pond I want to stock and I have a craving for giant fish. Annoying my favorite giant fish (aripiama) are prohibited here in Tx, so I want the next best thing- that’s NATIVE! I would catch one but that brings on its own host of problems- fish going belly up, parisites, angry rangers, etc.
Ok cool you should also add some Victoria water lilies to the pond,they r awesome additions and most Texas ponds have poor water due to lack of aquatic or semiaquatic plants.
If you're planning to stock a fishing pond with one and not a koi pond or something small scale I doubt you'd have any issues with parasites causing a problem. You can find them usually for about $50 + shipping through our vendors on here or on Aquabid. Typical sizes would be 6-10" available but they will get close to 3ft in the first year if fed heavily.
You shouldn't have any issues catching and relocating one to the pond as long as both are done in TX. They are not considered game fish so legally you can harvest 1 per day. I don't see how it would be any different if that 1 was alive or dead...
As far as the Arapaima it would never live in an unheated outdoor pond in TX even if you were as far south as Lake Falcon, the water gets way too cold in the winter.
Worth mentioning is that if you're putting it into a dedicated fishing pond and it has a chance to get big without being eaten, eventually it will have a huge negative impact on your bait fish and ultimately any fish up to about 10lbs when it becomes an adult so you'd need to have frequent additional baitfish stockings to keep up or minimal game fish competition. I've thought about a dedicated Alligator Gar/Carp pond myself in the past back home in DFW just haven't had the time to set one up. I'd think you would want nothing smaller than 5 acres if you were only wanting a few Alligator gar.
Ok, what do I feed them when they’re young, I might start them in a large filtered trough, so I can watch them. What is the biggest anyone’s grown them in a pond or aquarium? Also could red tails cats survive our winters? For some weird reason Texas has a state record for one and red tails aren’t on the prohibited list here and I want them too!
At smaller size like 6-10" Hikari floating pellets, frozen market shrimp or fish pieces, when they are bigger you could switch to Hikari Massivore over the floating pellets. There are members on here with some pushing 6ft overseas in outdoor tropical ponds, I've seen some close to 4ft in VERY large private aquariums.
No RTC will also not survive the winter, any prolonged water temps below the high 60's will wipe them out. Several lakes in TX have water body records for them when people have let them loose in the summer and they were caught before winter came. I've seen them personally grow 6" in a single month when small so even a small one that was released in the spring could probably get close to the 2ft mark before the water cooled off enough to kill it.
Yes those are the real deal. You can tell by the more broad snout and also if you were to check them closely Alligator Gar have two rows of teeth as opposed to most other gar having only a single row.