Crocodile Gars?

[DMan99]

At my LFS yesturday i saw some crocodile gars, theyre awesome! I'm not actually going to get any because they dont fit in with my other fish/ future fish but i just thought they were unusual and pretty cool. Does anyone keep these or has kept them in the past because i'd love to know a little more about them.

dman

 

[CFC]

The "crocodile" gar is a man made hybrid bred in Asian fish farms of the Aligator gar Atractosteus spatula and Florida gar Lepisosteus platyrhincus. As they are relatively new to the hobby their actual full adult size is still not known but it is thought that they will reach at least 50 inches in length and possibly up to 120 inches depending on the balance of genes inherited from the parent fish.
I unwittingly bought one of these a couple of years ago believing that what i was buying was actually a Florida gar but it unfortunately beame one of the many victims a overly aggressive Leporinus killed. Mine grew fairly fast doubling in size from 6 to 12 inches in around 6 months and was easily fed using frozen whitebait and floating carnivor sticks.

 

[DMan99]

Wow! Possibly 120 inches, 10 foot! They sound amazing, they look it aswel. I knew gars got quite big but... What sort of adult size do Florida and Aligator gars reach?

Thanks CFC,
dman

 

[beblondie]

florida gars 52 inches
alligator gars 120 inches and between 279-300 pounds

 

[DMan99]

Absolutely awesome!

I'd love to see one fully grown in the wild, altho the chances of that are pretty slim!

Thanks,
Dman99

 

[Michael Roth]

I had an alligator gar that reached just shy of four feet before I got rid of it. It ate a chicken breast a day, plus a handful or two of shrimp.


massive fish, but did a log imitation most of the time.

 

[DMan99]

Lol, u must have had a big tank..!

dman

 

[Clare]

If you want to see real aligator gars then go to Wharf Aquatics in Pinxton. Theirs are reaching 4ft and are the only fish to have a go at the silver arowana.
They are in a huge tank and they dive in to clean it out but someone has to watch the gars as they actually start to look at hunting the diver!!
Clare

 

[DMan99]

That is wicked!

One day, i'll have a super huge tank with some gars in it lol.

Thanks for the info Clare.

Dman99