The sharks in the Calgary LFS were also disappearing (and I noticed replacements too) and was told that the sharks will sometimes invert their stomachs to wash'em out or something. I think one of the sharks would then attack the others when they did this killing them. The policy seems to be to replace sharks that died with more sharks that will die all for the sake of their branding. There's been only one shark there for some time... I hope there are no replacements to be honest.

not flaming here and not a moral battle but this is a pour comparison.. your talking about a domestic animal that is happy in smaller areas with regular exercise.. comparing it to a non domesticated animal just doesn't cut it.

for the shark argument if you have enough room for it to swim freely and feed it properly it isn't a problem, but the cost of such a setup and proper filtration is beyond the budget of 99% of the people you are going to be asking for info from so really we can only give you back feed back from what we have read and been told.

best bet if you want a shark go to a board that specializes in sharks and find out from "experienced people"

not to say there isn't anyone here with some experiance but in the last 12 or 13 years I can count the amount of people on one hand I have seen with sharks and they all ended up badly from my memory.

Steve

no i agree totaly, I wasnt saying the dog and the shark as a comparison at all just how the google searches yeild some very far off results from time to time and usually from people who have no first hand experience.
Ive found some great info on the smaller sharks (im going to call them salt catfish from now) in the usa aswell as a guy in vancouver that are on other boards that have had great sucess with them so I will leave this be on here :)
rest assured though you will not see a blacktip or nurse in any of my tanks till i win the lotto or figure out how to waterproof drywall ;)

if you do go this way, and are sucessfull make some posts and share your set up and work that went into it with us. or do a running post on the build so others can learn from it also.

Steve

If i muster up the confidence and tech toys to try it out I sure will post it on here.... it will be a long while down the road for sure.....and really I dont know if Ill end up in the predator section of reefing either way as those corals are some kind of cool.....and I havent had a smaller fish community tank since my african chiclids 10 years ago.... Im just so used to 3 foot fish, massive filters, water changes and weekly trips to the market for fresh seafood its hard for me not to try and find what Im really really good at even in a new hobby like this salt Biz :)