LARGE sharks and aquarists

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C

capo larzo

Candiru
MFK Member
May 9, 2009
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New York
I posted this reply to a thread about one mans sharks and tank.

-"this guy cant win with you guys comin down on him. First you tell him water temp and feedings can control growth rate. Then when he admits hes keepin the temp at 72, now hes "stunting growth". Should he be keeping the temp at 80 and that would make you happy?

Anyway, the wobby is an attractive shark. If an lfs or importer offers it, someone will buy it, even if it needs a pond/lagoon bigger than most small homes. There might be a handful of aquarists in the country, if not the world, that can house a 10 foot animal, and WILL house a ten foot animal. They must have the means and the desire. So if anyone should be getting flamed, its the importer. Because chances are, it will end up in the hands of one of the many people without the means but with the desire.

I work at an lfs, theres a wobby for sale. ive many times thought about buying it to keep for a year or two. I could offer it a good few years. I think I could offer it a better two years than the person whos goiing to buy it. Thats how i look at it.

Would these sharks be better off dead? Or with a few decent years of life. Thats what i think it boils down to.


Im going to make this a thread. HAH. Im getting righteous and people need to hear. "


It upsets me when people get flamed for trying to provide, the best way they can, for an animal that will ultimately grow too large for their system. Atleast hes on here, trying to learn, looking and learning about bigger and better systems, sharing his trials and errors, making an effort. You ever wonder about how many people, right now, have cat or bamboo sharks, in 20 or 55 gallon tanks? That dont have computers, have never heard of monsterfishkeepers, that were sold a baby shark and told it could live its life in a 55 gallon tank with an HOT/HOB filter, by an lfs trying to pay the rent?

Stop flaming people passionate about aquaria and elasmos, start flaming importers and congress for that matter, for letting these sharks be available. A 10 foot shark is not an ornamental. Its a MONSTER. People should never be seeing these animals inside the glass walls of a tank. It gives the wrong impression. Thats like taking a mako juvi and putting it in a 2000 gallon tank. People will start to think "Hey, thats pretty cool, I want one of those." Then there will become a market.

Just my opinion.
Flame away.
 
just dont make people afraid to post and ask questions. Many people have sharks in systems way too small, if you make them fear your responses, theyll never ask the questions that need to be asked. Perhaps change your delivery, less opinion, more fact. Be informative,
not in-flame-itive.

I dont know, maybe this is falling on deaf ears. I hope someone reads this.
 
I don't generally support flaming any one but given that this person has a computer maybe he should have first researched the animal then got it. Getting it and then researching it would be somewhat deserving of ridicule.

Many people have sharks in systems way too small, if you make them fear your responses, theyll never ask the questions that need to be asked.
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There isn't really much to ask. You can't keep the animal in a X tank and you can't afford to put it in the rite sized tank. So the animal is screwed. If no one buys these animals then they will stop carrying them. As far as a few good years well either this one shark dies a miserable death now or more die the same miserable death in a few years.

On the other hand give how few sharks survive to adulthood the shark that person has would almost certainly have been eaten by something had it not been captured for the aquarium. Kind of a double edged sword on this one.
 
My take on this is the first part is right. Diet and temp control growth rate... and keeping it cold and not feeding it is WRONG. Yes, it will stay smaller, but it's growth stunting. If you can't provide for the animal for it's entire life, DO NOT BUY IT. it just becomes someone else's problem and it's very self centered behavior. If we keep buying small sharks that grow large, suppliers will still bring them in. We need to NOT feed the demand for them.

I agree most flaming is bad, but on the other hand, there are a LOT of dumb people who just don't get it... and those need to have the message hammered home hard.
 
ah depends on what kind of hammer you use aahhahahahahhahha

I prefer A ROOFING HAMMER muahahahhahahha

for sure many people need to be more circumspect with how they treat animals reptiles etc..... after all they are living creatures
 
All that "if we dont buy it, they wont sell it" crap is garbage. It sounds so good when you say it, but it just doesnt work. They only people that wouldnt buy the animals are the people that are informed, the people that would be the best caretakers. The idiots, the un-informed, would still be making impulse purchases, feeding the demand.
Theoretically its a good idea, realistically it doesnt work.
So be REALISTIC, if the animals are going to continue to be supplied, it becomes an issue of quality of life. However brief that may be.
 
I'm going to get a little off topic (as I tend to) with some personal experience based directly in the conversational bounds.

If anyone has followed my exploits over the last two years you've read all of the miscreant activities that I've been a party to. Starting off very simple with a betta, followed by an explosive jump into fishkeeping. Following the logical course I took up a trend buying fish one week and trading them back the next. Exploring what I thought was cool, waking up to a dead fish (aggression related death) and trading him/her back the next day. It's unfortunate, but luckily enough all of the fish I had acquired were common by any standards. Breaking that bad boy down I took my first steps into saltwater monster keeping and continued in this trend albeit much more slowly. This culminated with my tessalata eel, Lucy. I moved her from my 60 gallon into a 72 gallon bowfront knowing that I would need the space in a hurry. I knew at that point that she would grow much larger, and at 3 feet long my solution was temporary at best. Although I had done everything I could imagine to keep her in the tank she still managed to escape. Every time she escaped either my girlfriend or roommate had been present to put her back in, not myself. The final escape drew a very hard line for me. I simply could not afford to maintain standards that she needed, and doing everything I could would simply keep her "alive". Finally at the end of three years of hard learned lessons I had to give my lfs back the eel, that I had already given all of my previous salty predators for her in the first place. Vicious cycle. I use the term "gave", as they couldn't offer me a credit on an eel that needed such a large space for movement. At that point though I didn't want credit, as the only critter I became attached to I had to return and chalk another failure up to experience.

As far business goes, every supplier on the planet loves and exists by that sort of standard. If every fish we picked up lived to maximum lifespan, there would be no market at all for them. I love the guys I buy from, they've always treated me well. When I've had sick fish, they've quarantined for me. When I brought my coral in, they helped me decide on the best line to frag. If ever I've needed to return something, or rehouse something from somewhere else, they do so no questions asked. Every once in a while they'll send me out the door with something free, or cut me a great deal on what I do buy. That all being so, their business still does better if my fish die and I have to go back.

On accessibility, anyone familiar with the blue-ringed/blue-spot octopus? Small colorful octopus that can kill a full grown man in no time flat. Still for sale up and down the California coast. Even here in Colorado we don't have rattlesnakes for sale at petco. For another example, look at the common dither fish available at the chain. Some of them have been extinct in the wild for a decade. Still only $2.49.

As long as these animals will be bought, or will die, more will be shipped. There are several hard lines we have to understand, especially in saltwater. Where does all of that live rock come from? How many of the monsters we have in our tanks are wild-caught?

Even worse, when asking for assistance in a place like this, we have to be aware that with great fish comes great ego. For me this route has always worked. My fish are healthy, growing and happy. For you, the opposite is true. Keep in mind, no matter what you've done, I'm right. It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect.

In the end all we can do is try our best to be humble about what we've accomplished, and keep in mind that we were all at "that" point, at some point. (and that's an atheist saying this stuff!) You raise some good points capo, and I'm glad you've done so. Keep in mind how many clownfish died after Finding Nemo was released. Some of us understand (through thorough repetition), and some of us don't. Some can and some never will.
 
Keep in mind how many clownfish died after Finding Nemo was released.
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I would have been plenty nasty to the idiot parents that can't tell their kids no. Stupid people make stupid kids. That's why I no longer work in the LFS as telling a parent he/she is an idiot is frowned upon.
 
capo larzo;3202593; said:
All that "if we dont buy it, they wont sell it" crap is garbage. It sounds so good when you say it, but it just doesnt work. They only people that wouldnt buy the animals are the people that are informed, the people that would be the best caretakers. The idiots, the un-informed, would still be making impulse purchases, feeding the demand.
Theoretically its a good idea, realistically it doesnt work.
So be REALISTIC, if the animals are going to continue to be supplied, it becomes an issue of quality of life. However brief that may be.
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I agree people will continue to buy them. However, if they put a shark in a small tank then ask how to make it work - they HAVE to live with the fact that it just won't... end of story. If they bought say a black tip and tossed it in a 250, then asked for help. There's no way to say 'Oh, well all you have to do is _______". If it were that easy, more people would short cut the care of these animals. There are minimums people need to meet when it comes to tank size and filter set ups. Education is key.
 
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