Sharks for sale

[vass69]

"As long as your shark maintains it's normal body confirmation and behaves normally, it's safe to assume you are meeting its nutritional needs."

This portion of your statement would lead anyone to wonder if its enough to keep it in a healthy natural state. Unfortunately I one of "them" that believes there best left in the Ocean.

 

[turbo253]

I find it so interesting when people start asking questions in the forum about someone elses post and start making assumptions about the shark in question. Yet nobody has asked me and I'm the one with first hand knowledge about that particular shark. Here's the secret to keeping your sharks from growing like a bad fungus and yet keeping them healthy:
1) Only feed once every 5 days but enough to satiate. Too many shark owners totally dig watching their sharks eat to the point that they don't realize that the over feeding will increase their metabolism and growth rate. As long as your shark maintains it's normal body confirmation and behaves normally, it's safe to assume you are meeting its nutritional needs. (And always add vitamins to the food!!!)
2) Keep the water temp. in the low 70's (for tropicals). Warmer water will increase the metabolism as well.

As far as stunting their growth is concerned and any renal/liver damage I can only say that the one Long Beach had a couple years ago was purchased from me and was kept by me under the same conditions as the one I have now. From what I understand they gave it to OK Aquarium, so OK would be the ones to ask about it's current health status. I've donated quite a few sharks to aquariums over the years after keeping them in my tanks. All of the ones I was able to keep track of seemed to live on nicely.

Well put man. I feed my sharks this way and I have not seen the crazy growth rates that everyone talks about. As far as I can tell mine are all happy and healthy. I am sure where ever the bull goes its going to do just fine.

 

[Zoodiver]

Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention is that I have kept 3 Bulls and have found them as easy to keep as lemons. I don't like contradicting Matt (Zoodiver) because he is really sharp. But on this one I must disagree based on my own experiences.

Can't argue first hand experiences. I will credit you as about the only private owner I know of that keeps them well.

As for the shark that went from Long Beach to Jenks... it's doing fine. I talked to the OK crew awhile ago about it. I didn't know that one started off as yours.

 

[Jabba954]

I would think that with the bull being an ORV, that it would inherently more difficult to keep than the lemon shark. Not to mention a more dangerous rep. That said, reputations can be mis-earned.

sharkdealer - any word on my zebra shark?

 

[turbo253]

Its my understanding that even though a lemon is not an ORV shark, It still takes more energy and effort for the animal to breath than if it was swimming. These sharks seem to like to stop for short periods of time but are nothing like a white tip reef shark or a smooth hound.
The white tip will stay in one spot for hours and get up and swim for a while. The lemon on the other hand only seems to sit for 10 or 15 min at a time and than stays swimming for hours on end nice and slow. Also something I noticed with my lemon is that when he is moved to a new system it takes about 2 months for him to settle in and start to lay on the bottom. I when I first got him he swam for 2 months with out stopping and now he has been in the new pool for about 1.5 months and has yet to stop. So from what I have seen with my lemon it would still be in the best interest of the shark to treat its tank set up as you would for an ORV shark. Cause they are by no means a sitting shark.

 

[Zoodiver]

I agree with the lemon comments. I've seen certain lemons that won't rest at all in captive settings.

 

[sharkdealer]

I would think that with the bull being an ORV, that it would inherently more difficult to keep than the lemon shark. Not to mention a more dangerous rep. That said, reputations can be mis-earned.

sharkdealer - any word on my zebra shark?

The lemon's ability to rest on the bottom does come in handy in terms of transport, but biologically the two sharks share many of the same traits. Both are medium/heavy bodied. Both attain a similar size. Both have similar diets. When you have kept both species you will find something rather unusual: Lemons tend to be far more feisty and quick to bite. They will tear after food much faster than other sharks in the tank. The bull tends to cruise around with a confident attitude. The bull will simply take the food from your other sharks if it can't beat 'em to the punch. The bull is also unafraid of people. Being in the tank with many different species I have found that the sharks will stay at the opposite side of the tank when I'm in it. (Funny, the girls stay at the opposite end of the nightclub when I'm in there too. Coincidence?) The bull is the only shark I have kept that will come right up to me unafraid.
I texted you this morning about the zebra.