Banded Cat Shark feeding

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Erndog1001

Jack Dempsey
Jul 28, 2005
2
0
31
NY
Hello all. I was lucky enough to be able to pick up a baby (6-8") Banded Cat Shark from my LFS for my 400 gal reef tank. Now they said they had him for about a week and that it was readily taking mysis shrimp. I've had him now for about a week & I'm not worried per say. Just curious about his behavior.
All water parameters are fine and no other fish is harassing him. He seems to stay hidden away for the most part and only ventures out occasionally. This is true for night as well as day. Now I assume some of this is getting used to his new surroundings. Should I expect to see him start actively swimming around at some point?
As for eating. He seems to do so sporadically. And so far I've only been able to get him to take mysid. I've tried very small pieces of haddock and scallops which he seems uninterested in. What else can I try? How often should he be eating to stay healthy?
Thanks in advance
 
They are not super active sharks. Most of the time the will hide or lay motionless on the bottom to conserve energy.
A pup should eat daily. As it grows you can slow down to every other day (about a year old). They need a variety of food, but mysis is a good staple for a pup. Various shrimp, muscle, clam, krill, silver sides, salmon etc... They eat inverts that are high in calcium and iodine in the wild, so try to replace that in your tank.

Do you have a picture of the tank set up? Usually sharks like this don't do well in a reef. They like to knock over things and create a lot of waste which can bleach out your coral.
 
Here's a video Not the greatest quality But its good enough to get the gist of it. What kind of waste are we talking about here? Or just a lot of it? My system can handle the load.
 
Sharks produce a large volume of waste, if they 'unload' while directly on or above coral, it can do some damage to them.
 
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