banded cat shark egg

[bulletsworld]

Originally Posted by fentochris

where is the best place in a tank to place the shark egg and is there anything that might be harmful to the egg? ie. hermits,shrimps?

O.H Boy you’re in for a real treat. The shark egg usually has a sack around the egg for its protection. No shrimp, hermit or any inverts will harm the egg.

The concept of having a shark is cool but indeed a problem later on down the road. I strongly agree with others here that most people are not able to house a shark properly because of tank size, feeding requirements & various reasons. Treatment is hard to administer if they get sick (eg, ich, velvet) and these sharks are prone to scrapping there under side on the rocks resulting in infection. Despite why the LFS sells this creature & claim they do not become large, the bamboo shark, as I found out the hard way myself, does grow to be quite large even in small tank conditions.

July of last year I purchased a used tank (77gal) that came with a shark egg that had hatched four months before & a mandarin goby. That was the only two things in this tank, so without having experience, I thought great I'll buy it & add my own fish with these fish. I hardly ever seen the bamboo shark which they love to hide under rocks or caves during any day light. Every month this shark would grow. I started to add other fish and shrimp, at first it took a week & they would disappear later it only took a couple of days before they would disappear. Not figuring out what was going on, I added 4 clowns (nemo’s) & a damsel. Next morning 3 of the clowns had gone missing! By the time I had gotten home from work, the other clown was gone too and the damsel had a piece taken out of him. Later that night I took a flashlight in the dark, trying to find the culprit…..sure enough the shark that I hardly even seen was swimming around like mad. The damsel was then eaten.

After having my Bamboo shark for 6 months (hatched 4 months before I received so 10months old) my bamboo shark was measured at being over 13” long and had a hard time moving around in the tank freely. Not to mention the cost to feed was getting expensive. It would eat approx. 7 large krill & 4 squid cubes in a day. I also found that the only fish that I could put in the tank was something the shark couldn’t put in its mouth, fast & aggressive. I also found that other fish were stressed & afraid when the shark came out to eat. Making it very stressful on inhabitants & myself.

As my shark quickly out grew the tank, I had a hard time finding a home. I ended up selling my Shark to a LFS after I only had it for 6 months. Today this shark is housed in a 4000 gal aquarium in Big Al’s in Edmonton. Two weeks ago I went to see the shark feeding; I absolutely amazed how HUGE my shark has gotten. Literally triple the size! Go visit! I will post pictures for you (before & after)!

These creatures are not for our tanks. They do get large, are aggressive and noted for the advanced aquarist with an extremely large tank for them to be happy.

Fentochris, if you would like any additional info I would be happy to forward it over to you. Let me know.

[Doug]

Great post bulletsworld.

[kuatto]

I originally started with plans of keeping a Bamboo.I mulled over hundreds of plans of large tanks and what was needed to keep one of these creatures and come to realise even if I built a 500gal,it wouldn't be be enough.Have you purchased the egg yet?If so can you bring it back and just tell the store your not able to house it?