Smoothhound swimming normal?

[tony detroit]

A few things if I might
1. Sending a tape in of you slowly killing a shark to america's funniest videos....would not be funny
2. If you have kept "countless" numbers of leopard sharks, wouldn't you be educated enough to know that a shark would never stick his head out of the water to "get more oxygen"
3. My guess is that your shark will be dead soon.
4. I would never recommend that you put another smoothound in a 180 gal nor a leopard shark.

 

[novice150]

Saltfisher: I'm afraid your stuck with a morality issue here, and that there is no clear answer on what to do.
Sharkfan: I'm with you on everything you said in the above posts. There are quite a few people who have witnessed this problem with smooth hounds. However, I still believe that it is not a normal behavior, and if not corrected (somehow) then the shark will die.
I agree with your theory that smooth hounds may not adapt to captive life as well as leopards, but I don't know why. They are from the same family, come from the same waters, and are just about identical in every way except coloration. My best guess is diet. Perhaps there is something in their natural diet which we are not duplicating?
Saltfisher: You mentioned that you live near the water... Maybe you could catch an assortment of live food for the shark, and see if that makes a difference? I also believe stress plays a part in this. When my smooth hound had this same problem in the past, I moved him to another tank hoping that the problem stemmed from the original tank. The move exaggerated the problem 10x, and he died a month later.
Oceanclear mentioned that he had a smooth hound which did this, and it then "had a sudden death." If by "sudden" he means it just died one day(not suddenly jumped out of the tank), then I think the two are related. I think he's on the right track supplementing his foods with selcon. I use it for my sharks, and believe it makes a difference. Maybe it will help with the smooth hounds as well?
Is there any chance of copper or any other metal leaching into the water? Any metal objects coming into contact with the water? Are all of your parameters normal? SG? Temp? How well is the shark eating?

 

[saltfisher]

Originally posted by tony detroit
A few things if I might
1. Sending a tape in of you slowly killing a shark to america's funniest videos....would not be funny
2. If you have kept "countless" numbers of leopard sharks, wouldn't you be educated enough to know that a shark would never stick his head out of the water to "get more oxygen"
3. My guess is that your shark will be dead soon.
4. I would never recommend that you put another smoothound in a 180 gal nor a leopard shark.

Tony, there was no need to be a smartass about this situation. I was going to send the tape when I thought that was normal behavior. Also, I have not kept "countless" numbers of leopards. The one I have is the FIRST. A baby leopard or Smoothhound would have plenty of room in a 180. The thing about this is that it's not just me and Sharkfan with this issue. If you do a search for Smoothhounds on this site you'll see that almost every thread is about the fish swimming weird.
Novice, my water is perfect. The temp is around 72. I'm not the one that lives around water, I believe that's Sharkfan. I have never had or heard of a SmoothHound until I got mine. So the behavior that I am seeing is all new to me. I didn't have basis for a comparison, thus, I figured all was well. Now that you're telling me it isn't, what can I do....Nothing at this point because I am not near an ocean to release it. He eats perfectly fine and has no problem locating the food. He goes right to it.

 

[novice150]

Your right, I got you two mixed up. My apologies.

 

[tony detroit]

1. Sharkfan said he had kept "countless" numbers of leopard sharks
2. I still strongly believe that leopards/smoothounds should not be kept in aquariums unless they are huge aquariums. You think they are happy??? Why do you think they are always trying to jump out? Take a trip to sea world/local aquarium you may think twice.
3. And if "almost every thread" states that the smoothound is swimming weird then what would make you think that you can keep one but "almost every thread" states otherwise?

 

[saltfisher]

If that's the case, we shouldn't even have fish tanks because no one here has anything that can compare to the ocean.

 

[tony detroit]

I will agree with you on that.
However keeping a smoothound/leopard shark in captivity is much worse than any ornamental fishes.