For some reason, everyone outside of the aquarist community and even some aquarist community believes every type of gar is an alligator gar, especially young of the year. So just out of curiosity, how do young of the year alligator gars look like? If anyone has any pics of small alligator gars, especially those that are just spawned or around 4 months of age, can you guys post them? Also how long are most baby alligator gars? I think newly spawned animals are already 5 inches or so right?
Young of the year gator gar appearance
- Thread starter KillaFish
- Start date
KillaFish;4353559; said:
the initial size of "newly spawned animals" varies immensely depending on the species. newly hatched gars are about 5-6mm in length...not even an inch long. a gator gar after 4 months can be 12"+...they have some of the fastest growth rates among predatory fishes, and the fastest among the gars.
check out the ID key threads for some pics of young gator gars, and in the gar quiz thread there are some photos of YOY gators as well. the size of a YOY (young of the year) gator gar will vary with specific age...~5-6mm at hatch, and quickly growing to several inches in their first 2 months. just for reference, your fish is definitely not a juvenile gator gar--
--solomon
E_americanus;4353564; said:
thanks a lot Solomon and yeah, I know he is definitely not an alligator gar. If he was, I probably wouldn't have gotten him since Alligator gars can reach 10 feet in the wild and the largest one on record is 350 lbs. In captivity in aquariums, they can reach 6 feet but if kept in ponds, they can get a bit larger. The alligator gars kept in earth ponds in thailand routinely reach close to 7 feet. I'm hoping my gar is either a florida, spotted, or a longnose and that it reaches its potential. I'm hoping for at least 4 feet in length, I appreciate you pointing me to the threads where I can look for my pics though. Thanks.