Does anyone have any knowledge of how to take care of the larger variety of sharks such as Blacktip Sharks? I'd like to figure out how to build a pond for them.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Shark Pond
- Thread starter Pond Pioneer
- Start date
That's true, I know that they need a lot of surface area to swim around. Apparently it's 6-7 times their length, so if the shark is 5 feet then you need a pond to be 30-35 ft. which is already a huge pond. I'm assuming at least 5 ft deep but it maybe necessary for 11? I also need to know min and max temperatures. recommended DO concentration (im assuming 8 mg/l at least).
I had replied farther after my accidental premature post but it took to long and lost it all. But in short a local wholesaler of corals fish and breeder of cat sharks tried it in 2 very large pools. I dont know the whole story but these guys were experts and the stuff they propagated and bred was high end. The sold retail for a few years its where I had gotten my coral cat and bamboo cats. And count less corals no one else had. They failed and took those pools down. They said it was to give more room for breeding and coral propagation but one of the guys that knew me pretty well said they couldnt keep them alive. I was shocked seeing that they did so well with all the other stuff.
Interesting, could you ask your friend if I could contact them and ask some questions. Aquapparel on YouTube successfully keeps these sharks I believe so it's not impossible. I just need to figure out how to increase the scale. But first I need to know the right size pond in terms of surface area and depth, then know what to consider if I put multiple blacktip sharks, then it goes optimum water temperature range, what they need to eat at varying different sizes, them choosing the filters and water quality management systems.
I never said he was a friend he "knew" me from being there and him going to local frag swaps I was selling corals at. I havent been in contact with them in years since I sold all my salt stuff to appease the ex.
Its called Tropicorium its in Romulus MI.
Here is a couple links. Also along the way I found some stuff i didnt know but figured as this is where I got my kelp from and I'm pretty sure it was obtained illegally. Looks like they had some issues with the law at some point in the last couple years. Could have been some weird fish and wildlife you didnt pay us enough thing. I dont know and didnt hear anything till I tried to find a link for you.
It's a huge place big series of green houses.
Its called Tropicorium its in Romulus MI.
Here is a couple links. Also along the way I found some stuff i didnt know but figured as this is where I got my kelp from and I'm pretty sure it was obtained illegally. Looks like they had some issues with the law at some point in the last couple years. Could have been some weird fish and wildlife you didnt pay us enough thing. I dont know and didnt hear anything till I tried to find a link for you.
Check out the coolest aquarium shop in Michigan
The Tropicorium breeds sharks and designer clownfish, and grows its own coral. The shop's tanks hold 55,000 gallons of salt water capacity.
www.google.com
Pond Pioneer,
Sharks as a whole are really not difficult to care for. They need a lot of space, and heavy filtration. Of course, that's speaking in general - there are certain species that would be considered difficult, as they just don't adapt to captivity very well.
I'm assuming by blacktip shark, you mean blacktip reef sharks - there's a pretty big difference between the two. Blacktip reef sharks are extremely common in public and large private aquariums (as far as the ORV sharks go, anyways), and reach about 5 feet. They're pretty well-adapted to captivity, and do well provided they are given enough space. Blacktip sharks, on the other hand, get in the 6 to 7 foot range, and rarely survive in captivity. They're high-strung, and even in the largest systems they seem to not survive very well.
As far as a setup, again - it's really nothing that difficult, and doesn't even need to be that complicated. Start with an above ground pool, add insulation on the entirety of the inside. Then add a pond liner, preferably two. Weigh that down, or find a way to get it to stay tight. For filtration, I would run a pair of large bead filters and a large skimmer. Learn how large skimmers work, and you can build your own for cheap. The bead/sand/cartridge filters can be built too, but it's usually similar in cost to just buy them (use ones made for pools, they're pretty cheap). Use a few large pumps to run everything, have one flow into some kind of bio tower and gravity-feed back into the tank. The others can return directly to the pond, and be used for additional flow. Heating can be done a number of ways, an inline heating system is probably the easiest and cheapest, though.
I would add some kind of lid to that setup (at least some kind of netting, if not something more solid), as well as a few large storage tanks to store/mix water for water changes. But that's a pretty bare bones shark setup. You could do that for around $10K, and house most of the ORV species.
That $10K doesn't cover most of your costs, though. You've got to feed them, which will be a few hundred a month, if not a week. If you live near the coast - easy to catch your own food supply. If not, get ready to pay thousands a year in feeding costs. Animal costs are expensive too - you're not going to get a BTR for under $2,000. Whitetips are similar in price, and atlantic ORVs are typically a little bit less than that. Water changes will be much less frequent, but when you do them they're still going to be big. You can cut down on salt costs by doing a DIY mix, but again - another thing that's going to take up time, space, and money.
As far as tank sizes, most people throw numbers out there without knowing what they're talking about. BTRs should ideally be kept in something that is, at MINIMUM, 36 feet long by 12 feet wide. When keeping elasmobranchii, minimum isn't really recommended. Ideally, they would be in a pool in the 45' by 15' range. That would be suitable for 2-3 BTR for life. As far as depth, it's similar to keeping other fish - make sure they're not out of the water, and give them at least some room to swim vertically. But, 3-4 feet deep is sufficient.
You can keep these sharks in round pools, as well. However, I personally don't recommend it to people. Unless they are MASSIVE pools, they encourage the shark to constantly make turns, which can cause deformities and overall isn't the healthiest thing for the fish. They really need the distance to swim, and longer oval-shaped pools are often easier to accomodate than large round pools, anyways. If your heart is set on a round pool though, I would go no less than 24 feet in diameter, preferably closer to 30.
The dimensions listed above will give you, based on standard above ground pool dimensions, about a 25,000 gallon setup. You would not be limited just to BTR in that setup though - you could keep WTR, zebra sharks, a variety of larger benthics like bamboos, rays, large fish, etc.
I'm not of the school of thought of buying "beginner" animals before getting into "advanced" stuff. That just leaves people with animals that they don't want. If you want to jump into ORV sharks, I say go for it. Just know that it's going to take up a lot of space, a lot of time, and a lot of money.
Just so this doesn't get too long - I will add another post with more thoughts
Sharks as a whole are really not difficult to care for. They need a lot of space, and heavy filtration. Of course, that's speaking in general - there are certain species that would be considered difficult, as they just don't adapt to captivity very well.
I'm assuming by blacktip shark, you mean blacktip reef sharks - there's a pretty big difference between the two. Blacktip reef sharks are extremely common in public and large private aquariums (as far as the ORV sharks go, anyways), and reach about 5 feet. They're pretty well-adapted to captivity, and do well provided they are given enough space. Blacktip sharks, on the other hand, get in the 6 to 7 foot range, and rarely survive in captivity. They're high-strung, and even in the largest systems they seem to not survive very well.
As far as a setup, again - it's really nothing that difficult, and doesn't even need to be that complicated. Start with an above ground pool, add insulation on the entirety of the inside. Then add a pond liner, preferably two. Weigh that down, or find a way to get it to stay tight. For filtration, I would run a pair of large bead filters and a large skimmer. Learn how large skimmers work, and you can build your own for cheap. The bead/sand/cartridge filters can be built too, but it's usually similar in cost to just buy them (use ones made for pools, they're pretty cheap). Use a few large pumps to run everything, have one flow into some kind of bio tower and gravity-feed back into the tank. The others can return directly to the pond, and be used for additional flow. Heating can be done a number of ways, an inline heating system is probably the easiest and cheapest, though.
I would add some kind of lid to that setup (at least some kind of netting, if not something more solid), as well as a few large storage tanks to store/mix water for water changes. But that's a pretty bare bones shark setup. You could do that for around $10K, and house most of the ORV species.
That $10K doesn't cover most of your costs, though. You've got to feed them, which will be a few hundred a month, if not a week. If you live near the coast - easy to catch your own food supply. If not, get ready to pay thousands a year in feeding costs. Animal costs are expensive too - you're not going to get a BTR for under $2,000. Whitetips are similar in price, and atlantic ORVs are typically a little bit less than that. Water changes will be much less frequent, but when you do them they're still going to be big. You can cut down on salt costs by doing a DIY mix, but again - another thing that's going to take up time, space, and money.
As far as tank sizes, most people throw numbers out there without knowing what they're talking about. BTRs should ideally be kept in something that is, at MINIMUM, 36 feet long by 12 feet wide. When keeping elasmobranchii, minimum isn't really recommended. Ideally, they would be in a pool in the 45' by 15' range. That would be suitable for 2-3 BTR for life. As far as depth, it's similar to keeping other fish - make sure they're not out of the water, and give them at least some room to swim vertically. But, 3-4 feet deep is sufficient.
You can keep these sharks in round pools, as well. However, I personally don't recommend it to people. Unless they are MASSIVE pools, they encourage the shark to constantly make turns, which can cause deformities and overall isn't the healthiest thing for the fish. They really need the distance to swim, and longer oval-shaped pools are often easier to accomodate than large round pools, anyways. If your heart is set on a round pool though, I would go no less than 24 feet in diameter, preferably closer to 30.
The dimensions listed above will give you, based on standard above ground pool dimensions, about a 25,000 gallon setup. You would not be limited just to BTR in that setup though - you could keep WTR, zebra sharks, a variety of larger benthics like bamboos, rays, large fish, etc.
I'm not of the school of thought of buying "beginner" animals before getting into "advanced" stuff. That just leaves people with animals that they don't want. If you want to jump into ORV sharks, I say go for it. Just know that it's going to take up a lot of space, a lot of time, and a lot of money.
Just so this doesn't get too long - I will add another post with more thoughts
If you're not ready to build a 20,000+ gallon setup - which most people aren't - you can look into the smaller benthic sharks. The most common species in the hobby are going to be brown banded bamboos, white spotted bamboos, epaulettes, coral cats, and horned sharks. There are about a dozen other species that show up on supply lists with some regularity, but those five are available pretty often. Still, if you know where to look, you can get your hands on almost any species you have in mind.
The largest of those are brown banded bamboos (which are unfortunately the most common), getting about 3.5 feet. Horn sharks are cloes behind, usually they get to about 3 feet. Both need a 12 foot setup, a 12x6 pond would suit them well. At 2.5 feet deep, you'd be looking into about a 1,400 gallon system. Keep in mind, horn sharks are a cooler water species.
The other three can be kept in a standard 600 gallon aquarium, 8x4x2.5. Epaulettes and white spotted bamboos usually get around 2.5 feet, although there are lots of epaulettes that push the 3 foot mark - so something more like 10x4 would be much better (10x4x3 is a standard 900 gallon, for reference). Coral catsharks get to about 2 feet, but they are much more active. If you designed the system properly, you could keep a pair in your standard 8x3 (8x3x2 is 375 gallons).
Sort of in between the ORVs and the benthics, you have smoothhounds. Grey smoothhounds show up pretty often, and there are a few other species that show up from time to time or on special order (leopard sharks included). Grey smoothhounds usually get about 3.5 feet, and are much more "shark-looking" than your bamboos and catsharks. They're also more active - I wouldn't keep one in a system less than 15 feet long, preferably closer to 20. I'd give them at least 6 feet to turn around, as well. That's going to give you a setup in the 1,600 gallon range, bare minimum. Keep in mind, these are also a cooler water species.
Filtration for all those setups would be the same, I'd just scale it down (obviously, a 25,000 gallon system has a bit beefier filtration than a 400-1200 gallon system would).
At the end of the day with sharks, it's usually well-meaning but ill-informed people giving advice. I'll be open with you, I've never kept a shark a day in my life - but I've spent years talking with the people that have, and reading the literature out there (the Scott Michael book that people suggest isn't worth the paper it's printed on, pick up the Elasmobranch Husbandry Manual instead - that's somewhere around a thousand pages of information straight from large private and public instutitions).
People make sharks out to be difficult to care for, when in reality most species available aren't. They just take up way more space, time, and money than most fish do. If you are HONESTLY willing to provide that - I say go for it
The largest of those are brown banded bamboos (which are unfortunately the most common), getting about 3.5 feet. Horn sharks are cloes behind, usually they get to about 3 feet. Both need a 12 foot setup, a 12x6 pond would suit them well. At 2.5 feet deep, you'd be looking into about a 1,400 gallon system. Keep in mind, horn sharks are a cooler water species.
The other three can be kept in a standard 600 gallon aquarium, 8x4x2.5. Epaulettes and white spotted bamboos usually get around 2.5 feet, although there are lots of epaulettes that push the 3 foot mark - so something more like 10x4 would be much better (10x4x3 is a standard 900 gallon, for reference). Coral catsharks get to about 2 feet, but they are much more active. If you designed the system properly, you could keep a pair in your standard 8x3 (8x3x2 is 375 gallons).
Sort of in between the ORVs and the benthics, you have smoothhounds. Grey smoothhounds show up pretty often, and there are a few other species that show up from time to time or on special order (leopard sharks included). Grey smoothhounds usually get about 3.5 feet, and are much more "shark-looking" than your bamboos and catsharks. They're also more active - I wouldn't keep one in a system less than 15 feet long, preferably closer to 20. I'd give them at least 6 feet to turn around, as well. That's going to give you a setup in the 1,600 gallon range, bare minimum. Keep in mind, these are also a cooler water species.
Filtration for all those setups would be the same, I'd just scale it down (obviously, a 25,000 gallon system has a bit beefier filtration than a 400-1200 gallon system would).
At the end of the day with sharks, it's usually well-meaning but ill-informed people giving advice. I'll be open with you, I've never kept a shark a day in my life - but I've spent years talking with the people that have, and reading the literature out there (the Scott Michael book that people suggest isn't worth the paper it's printed on, pick up the Elasmobranch Husbandry Manual instead - that's somewhere around a thousand pages of information straight from large private and public instutitions).
People make sharks out to be difficult to care for, when in reality most species available aren't. They just take up way more space, time, and money than most fish do. If you are HONESTLY willing to provide that - I say go for it
Some DIY links for you to look through:
We don't get too many shark people on here. I always seem to drift out of interest with them, then something like this comes along and BOOM, I'm right back where I was into them again
- Homemade salt mix recipe (priced out to around 25% of the cost of normal marine salt)
- VLDesign's 2700 gallon plywood tank build (shows a bit of how an inline heating system works, as well as arguably the most solid design for building your own large aquarium, if you choose to go down that route versus a pond)
- AlexG's design of an inline heating system, adapted to a saltwater system (note that this is just Part 1, there are 3 parts I believe)
- Article showing Joe Yaiullo's custom built skimmer (this is running on a 20,000 gallon reef tank, scroll down to see it - look it up, there are also a few good gifs/photos showing how Venturi skimmers work)
- The Elasmobranch Husbandry Manual (looks like there is a new version, I'll be picking that up myself most likely - if you know anyone that works in a school, have the school order the book, because they get it for free - that's how I got mine for $10)
We don't get too many shark people on here. I always seem to drift out of interest with them, then something like this comes along and BOOM, I'm right back where I was into them again
