aquarium size for a shark

jennie

Member
I love the sharks I see in here. The bamboo shark and the leopard shark. What is the minimum size tank for them?
 

jr2857

Active Member
bamboo is at the least 220 but 400 IMO and leopards for adult is in the thousands. bamboos grow up to 40 inches but leopards can grow up to 6ft sharks are extremely addicting but at least a few months of reaserch must be done. and it is not cheap at all. the least amount of money is $2000. please look at this thread.
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/show...rk+information
and do a search on whatever shark you desire. and plz do not attempt shark keeping without making sure the shark can live in the system you provide its whole lifetime.
 

sharkboy97

Member
please dont keep a leopard most home aquariums cannot keep them
a bamboo can do in a 180, but what jr2857 would be a lot more proper get the book aquarium sharks and rays and read it that has tons and tons of information
 

jr2857

Active Member
a 180 IMO would not work cause a bamboo grows 40 in. and the width of a 180 is at the most is 24in. so i don't think it won't work cause it seems impossible for it turn
 

mitzel

Active Member
JR2847: Please Please Please stop trying to give out advice on these animals . You have never kept one and the only information you have on them is what other people have given you. When you have kept one for any length of time with an succsess then by all means feel free to give advice. Untill then you EXPERINCE is nothing more then second hand knowlage at best and this gives you liitle to back up your opinions. You could really benefit from spending more time reading posts and less time posting answers to questions you have no experiance with. DO you really want to be responsible for somebody killing a shark because you gave out some advice that you read about , but don't know if its truth.
My point is good advice comes from people that have delt with the issues not people that have picked and choosed what info they want to use from a book. Seriously you have yet to even read the shark and rays for the home aquarium book. this is a book of basics for these animals.
Not to mention you have no concept of the real prices of keeping a tank of larger sizes or the actual maintanance it takes.
 

mitzel

Active Member
Originally Posted by Jennie
I love the sharks I see in here. The bamboo shark and the leopard shark. What is the minimum size tank for them?

There is no set minimum tank size , the problem with sharks rays and even some eels is that the requierments to properly house these animals are not meet by the standard aquarium. Some people are doing great jobs housing them in 180-220 gallon tanks . And there is nothing wrong with this. But they also have plans of upgrading even from there. Depending on which shark your interested in the tank size can range from 180 gallon tanks up into ten's of thousands of gallons in a pond/ lagoon. a small coral cat reaches about 24"+/- and a 180 is going to ok to house them for a while . now as you go along the lines and the sharks get bigger your going to need a bigger tank. bamboos will do fine in a 180-220 for a while but you should keep in mind that they need room to turn around and a wider tank is mandatory for a happy healthy fish. Eppullate's which are a bit bigger will also do fine but again an upgrade in the future is going to be needed.
Once yopu get into free swimming sharks such as lepords,bonets and reef sharks the tank requierments sky rocket into the 1000+ even for juvinals . They also requier special shaped housing to keep them from running into the walls . the tanks need to be more rounded on the ends. so this just circles the shark around to give the more open ocean type of feel for the shark.
Even for the smaller sharks filtration is of the most importance. these sharks give off a ton of bio load. and are very messy eaters. Skimmers , filtration should be rated for tanks bigger then the tank they are used on. Water quality is very important . You also need to ground out your tank water to help remove stray voltage thats in your tank. sharks are suseptable to stray current and even a few volts can cause them to stress out and not feed .
 
J

jcrim

Guest
Originally Posted by jr2857
and the width of a 180 is at the most is 24in. so i don't think it won't work cause it seems impossible for it turn

Just so you're aware, this is untrue. Sharks have an amazing physical attribute... joints. They do not have to turn around like a mack truck. They can turn their bodies like eels. Actually my shark regularly jams himself into a pile of rocks and does 180 degree turns in 4-5 inches of space.
 

jr2857

Active Member
Originally Posted by jcrim
Just so you're aware, this is untrue. Sharks have an amazing physical attribute... joints. They do not have to turn around like a mack truck. They can turn their bodies like eels. Actually my shark regularly jams himself into a pile of rocks and does 180 degree turns in 4-5 inches of space.
whoa i never knew that thanks jcrim. :joy:
 
J

jcrim

Guest
Originally Posted by jr2857
whoa i never knew that thanks jcrim. :joy:
No problem... actually I've read other people make this claim also. Just wanted to stop the myth.
 

ams153

Active Member
Even for the smaller sharks filtration is of the most importance. these sharks give off a ton of bio load. and are very messy eaters. Skimmers , filtration should be rated for tanks bigger then the tank they are used on. Water quality is very important . You also need to ground out your tank water to help remove stray voltage thats in your tank. sharks are suseptable to stray current and even a few volts can cause them to stress out and not feed .
this is something i want more info on doing.. i had no idea this was at all important and want to work at doin this.. how could i go about this?
and with what Jcrim said ive seen mine turn and flip around alot like an eel.. they really can turn VERY easily in small places!
 

lionfu411

Member
ok dont bash me ive never kept a shark but this is what ive seen from watching many people set up and keep sharks. first off is that buy the biggest possible tank that you can instead of trying to get off with the smallest you can buy. i would say anything over 200 gallons will be ok but you may have to upgrade in the future.
second (and shark keepers and others correct me if i'm wrong) but i think it is cheaper to build a pond/lagoon that buy a tank. the upside of that is that you can build it bigger for the same price as a big tank and you can get whatever dimensions you want on it. something like bang guys lagoon would be good for a shark and im almost 100 percent sure that he would have payed much more if he bought a tank that size
 

mitzel

Active Member
Yes and no. on smaller tanks it's cheaper to buy it . once you start getting bigger it's cheaper to build.
 

unleashed

Active Member
Originally Posted by jr2857
a 180 IMO would not work cause a bamboo grows 40 in. and the width of a 180 is at the most is 24in. so i don't think it won't work cause it seems impossible for it turn

the bamboo shark is rated for minimum of 180 gal also depending on which bamboo you get there is more than one type of bamboo shark
 

lionfu411

Member
Originally Posted by mitzel
Yes and no. on smaller tanks it's cheaper to buy it . once you start getting bigger it's cheaper to build.
yeah thats what i meant sorry i didnt clarify.
 
Top