why not to keep requiem sharks

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serafino

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Feb 27, 2008
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An octopuses's garden in the sea
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As most people know if you haven't realized it yet that requiem sharks cannot manually respirate. So they need to be constantly moving. If you are always moving how can you ever relax. So thats why they establish a swim pattern. In order to establish a healthy swim pattern they need space and crap loads of it.
I found a elasmobranch husbandry manual (from the elasmobranch husbandry symposium) that had an interesting segment that showed a study of a few species of requiem sharks and their swim space needs of their patterns. It shows their cycle of speed burst, turn, glide, recovery period, turn, cruise period, turn, speed burst, glide recovery, turn.........
It analyzed the distance (using some formula)they were covering during their swim patterns and shows how much distance each shark needs to be able to do this. I don't know how to get part of a pdf on here so I'll just type up the chart.

Species, size of shark, distance of swim pattern
black tip, 4ft, 72ft
(limbatus)

lemon, 8ft, 56ft
bull, 6ft, 60ft
sandbar, 4ft, 54ft
porbeagle, 5ft, 84ft
black nose, 3ft, 60ft
tiger, 6ft, 80ft

So this basically means if you have a shark over 6ft long (exceptions being lemon, nurse, bull, and sand tiger) you need a tank 100 feet long by 40 feet wide. That is a huge tank for the average aquarist. A tank for a large full grown black tip reef is insanely large.
I just want people to realize the massive size system required to house requiem sharks. They need that space minimum to establish a healthy swim pattern that way they can effectively rest. You can easily kill a requiem shark simply by not providing enough room for it to have a healthy swim pattern. If it cannot glide without turning for a certain distance it will always be exerting energy and will eventually kill it. A requiem shark is not for the average aquarist or even one with a 3000 gallon tank that thinks its so big that they can put a large shark in it.
So I thought I would share my knowledge to help people from making a very bad mistake. Hope this helps explain why they need the space. Any comments or additions are welcome.
Serafino




(argh the chart won't save right so I'll do it a little differently hold on)
 
wait....so a lemon needs a smaller tank than a blacktip?
 
Well - the Lemon isn't an ORV like the Blacktip is.Also it should be noted that the blacktips they are talking about isn't the Blacktip Reef. Carcharhinus Limbatus gets to be over 8' long. And Lemons even though they can get over 11 ft in length - are known to spend at least 20-30% of their time resting on the bottom.

While these are good figures for these species - it's doesn't fully tell the whole story. Such as Shape of tank/pond, or what if you start with a small pup and acclimated it to a tank. But it does give a good picture of why requiems aren't suited for private aquarists.

Also it should be noted - that example for the lemon shark - is the only mature adult shark in the group. All the rest are basically sub-adults.
 
Yup, it was a strange reference for the size of the sharks although the section this was in was about grow out tanks. I didn't do the study so it wasn't me lol. As Krj-1168 said it does not show the shape of the pond only the distance required for the swim pattern. I don't think their goal kept shape in mind since this was in a manual for public aquariums and holding/grow out tanks which are not for public display.
 
It's interesting stuff, I guess disagrees with large circular enclosures for any of them?
 
Circular tanks don't always mean circular patterns of swimming. And when a shark is seen constantly swimming the outter edge of a tank, there are ways to break it up and encourage left adn right turns of various sizes.

One example of that is a some bonnets we had in a 26' round holding (3-4 feet deep or so). In order to promote turns, we put a bunch of 50 gallon plastic trash cans filled with water around the edge. Soft if the shark hits them, rounded edges and just enough size to get them out away from the edge. Also a good way to make sure they are ready to navigate and exhibit with multiple obsticles.
 
So size wise this is really only applicable to standard rectangular tanks?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't think so - since the book that these figures is from is a Professional grade book on shark/ray husbandry.

More likely these figure are are based on an oval or octogon shaped design. Instead of a standard rectangular design.
 
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