Black Tipped Reef Sharks

[Fishy412]

Anyone who keeps a fish the size of a shark in a home aquarium is retarded.

They need to be in a public aquarium at the bare minimum ideally they are left back in the ocean. They arent like alot of marine tropical fish that stay in a very similar spot for the duration of their life. Sharks will cover vast areas of water, some constantly scavanging, others decending to the reefs at night to feed on an unsuspecting grouper or something equally substantial.

I know you were just curious, but unless you are thinking of looking at one of the types of smoothound that is realistically able to be kept in a home aquarium, then dont bother at all.

Ben

actually bunji there are a few that are okay for a home aquarium as long as its 250 gallons or upward. the cat shark (not the part fw one) is okay for a 250 gallon, so is the bamboo shark, smoothound, and possibly an epaulette. the horn shark might be okay in something like a 350 but not many people can house one. they are extremely difficult to keep. of course sharks like the port jackson, leopard, lemon, and reef shakrs hsould be left to public aquariums

the cat shark and bamboo shark are two tpes of shark that do not need to be moving in order to get oxygen. they can breathe fine sitting in one place

 

[GuppyDude]

Wow, this post is still around

Na, i definately have no plans on keeping a black tip reef shark, just curious. Thogh a 5000 gallon reef tank would be something amazeing to own (i could scuba dive in it), in the unlikliness that i become a billionair somhow, even then i dont think i would even consider stalking it with a black tip reef shark.

 

[bunjiweb]

There is no true shark that is really suitable for a "small" tank, the only ones are those such as the banded dog shark which only grows to about 40cm. People have kept them in tanks of 150 gallons and upwards..

And no, i wouldnt class a 5,000 or 10,000G tank as a "home aquarium"

Ben

 

[Matty]

i would...but it would be more of a home built around an aquarium

black tips arent really a suitable species to keep in captivity as they grow huge (7-9') and need tons of space to swim. There are other more suitable requim sharks available like the bonnethead or the sharpnose sharks.

 

[RoyalGrammaPrincessHannah]

Plus they would be really expensive to feed.

 

[Matty]

my lfs tells me the squid that they feed theirs once a week isnt all that costly

 

[Opcn]

Its not costly, but you have to buy alot.

Also, just so you know, a tank of 5000 gallons (which isn't enough for a blacktip reef shark) is going to be approxiamately 4 feet tall, 9 fet wide and 20 feet long. and wieght atleast 30 metric tonnes.

 

[andywg]

A 10,000 gallon tank is going to need around 5,000 kg of Live Rock. Even with massive discounts down to £5 per kg you are still looking at £25,000 for live rock alone.

Plus, to get the expected 20x turnover you are going to need a combined flow rate of 200,000 gph. Surely for that you might as well power it off the car...That is not anywhere near the realms of a home reef. As for the lighting... and the cost of salt and heating/cooling...

The largest home reef I've seen done before is 4,000 gallons, and that was torn down as the evaporation began to destroy the house.

 

[Matty]

A 10,000 gallon tank is going to need around 5,000 kg of Live Rock. Even with massive discounts down to £5 per kg you are still looking at £25,000 for live rock alone.

Plus, to get the expected 20x turnover you are going to need a combined flow rate of 200,000 gph. Surely for that you might as well power it off the car...That is not anywhere near the realms of a home reef. As for the lighting... and the cost of salt and heating/cooling...

The largest home reef I've seen done before is 4,000 gallons, and that was torn down as the evaporation began to destroy the house.

with an amazing skimmer, fluidized beds and a massive wet/dry sump, wouldnt you be able to get away with using less live rock? Besides, is it really important if you are keeping say, a species only tank? I mean, i understand if you're setting up a reef, but in a shark only tank, you wouldnt need as much would you?

 

[Opcn]

In big systems you make your aquascape out of pourus artificial rocks, namely things like lava rock and hypertufa, then you cover all of that in large pieces of base rock, then cover that in large pieces of live rock, that way you can keep great deals of microlife going and not take out a loan big enought to buy a house, also larger tanks tend to be less live rock filled as they have great deals of stability granted to them by thhere size and generally lower density of inhabitants.

 

[Lovesfish]

why even consider such a crazy thing when we all know that its near impossible to house a shark in your house when they would be much better suited for the ocean. I don't see why anyone in their right mind would want to house a shark and torture it like that. dave

 

[crazyelece]

If anyone is ever in the cincinnati area and wants to see a home aquarium with black tip reef sharks let me know, I'll take you over to see it. Its been running for 4-5 years now. It houses two black tip reef sharks. It has minimal coating of sand/gravel substrate and no live rock. I believe they told me they feed live fish or maybe just fresh fish from the market I forget. I haven't seen the filtration as its on the other side of a concrete block wall. It measures about 10'x20'x5'. Both sharks look very comfortable. When they notice someone watching through the windows they start showing off trying to get more attention.

 

[Matty]

oh man i would die to see that. how many gallons is the tank?

 

[Matty]

nevermind, i just did the math. works out to about 7,450 gallons B)

 

[crazyelece]

They call it a 10,000 gal and I didn't have my tape measure or anything so the dimensions may be a little larger than that. It is pretty cool to see. The owner told me he want to eventually take the height up to the ceiling level so about tripple the volume. He is just working out how to support the weight of the water pushing on the open sides.