500 + Gallon Shark and Ray System

[trigger happy]

andregarcia_73;576936 wrote: An 8X4ft aqiarium is big enough for a horn as they max out at 4 foot in the wild amd rarley reach 36" in captivity (usually topping out at 30"). trust me, I've raised a pair and thoroughly reasearched the species. I have kept sharks for years and evn a member of the wet web media crew has a horn shark aquarium with very similar dimensions.

Yeah, Horn sharks are really cool! I really didn't want to involve a chiller if I can help it though. My basement stays rather cool year round despite the fact it isn't climate controlled. :sad:

I read something one time about a breed or two of horn shark that was more tropical but I can't remember which species it was?

My heart is really with a gray smoothhound shark but of course it is too active for my tank and would need a chiller too...plus there is no chance of having two in this little tank much less breeding any of them as I hear only public aquariums have had any of them even try to mate. They do have the cool requiem shark appearance going for them! I'd better not think to much about this or I will start building another larger tank! LOL!

 

[trigger happy]

JDabs;576863 wrote: This is a really cool idea! Thanks for sharing with us and keep the pics and updates coming!

Your very welcome! I enjoy sharing weird ideas like this.

I really hope that this can help some people to build something large themselves that would otherwise costs $5,000-$10,000+ if it were done as a glass or acrylic tank. Of course, these are not display tanks they aren't even that pretty to look at but they will serve their purpose I hope. Now I just need to figure out how large of a tank a dolphin needs? J.K.!

 

[merkywater]

Here you go man Diver's Den has a pair already mated for ya!

 

[nanonano]

andregarcia_73;576936 wrote: An 8X4ft aqiarium is big enough for a horn as they max out at 4 foot in the wild amd rarley reach 36" in captivity (usually topping out at 30"). trust me, I've raised a pair and thoroughly reasearched the species. I have kept sharks for years and evn a member of the wet web media crew has a horn shark aquarium with very similar dimensions.

Maybe I was thinking of the Port Jackson.

 

[nanonano]

Trigger Happy;577079 wrote: I have considered the Epaulette shark also, but for some reason I just like the overall "look" of a bamboo shark a little better. Plus, the price point is so much lower on a banded bamboo shark....but I guess there are two ways you could look at that issue.

I hear that they are a lot of fun though and that is indeed a great suggestion from everything that I have read about them! You have got me thinking more about it now....uhmmmmm??????:confused2:

I think the look of the Epaulette is better than any other shark you can have at home outside of a Black Tip Reef shark or Leopard Shark but you have to have a freaking swimming pool sized tank for those guys.

Some Bamboos look really cool, others don't IMO. Guess it's personal preference though.

This one is ******

alt="" />

I love these though:

alt="" />

 

[nanonano]

merkywater;577103 wrote: Here you go man Diver's Den has a pair already mated for ya!

http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden/ItemDisplay.cfm?c=2733+3&ddid=100312">http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden/ItemDisplay.cfm?c=2733+3&ddid=100312</a>[/QUOTE]

Man I'd be all over that. I have a plan to have a room in the basement with a Shark tank for a pair like that, a rimless display reef tank, and a big frag tank as well.

 

[marko22]

I love the setup. I have been wanting to do something like this for a while now. Great job. I cant wait to see it with livestock in it. I think that Chris and I are going to work on something like this in the next few months for my basement fish room. I may need to check this out in person or get some more details from you if that is ok. I'm right around the corner.

 

[trigger happy]

MarkO22;577273 wrote: I love the setup. I have been wanting to do something like this for a while now. Great job. I cant wait to see it with livestock in it. I think that Chris and I are going to work on something like this in the next few months for my basement fish room. I may need to check this out in person or get some more details from you if that is ok. I'm right around the corner.

Sure thing, I would be glad to help out.:thumbs:

 

[trigger happy]

andregarcia_73;577205 wrote: Horn sharks are really nice and yes there are some that can be kept in tropical waters. Also I know another source that can get you an eppaulette for about 300 plus shipping, and yes I have ordered from them before. Have you kept sharks before or it this your first time? What all do you plan on keeping?

Yeah, this will be my first time with the sharks and rays! It has taken me months and months of research before I finally decided on the species of ray and shark which I want to keep.

As of now, I definately want a pair of cortez stingrays since they are pretty much the hardiest and smallest of aquarium rays and most likely two brown banded bamboo sharks.

 

[trigger happy]

bobbyp;577155 wrote: So does this mean you will be hatching them from eggs? If so id be very interested to find out if they do well. I had 3 bamboo shark eggs that didnt hatch and my buddy had 5 and 2 of 5 hatched. Seems like a low hatch rate. I went this route due to the fact i read alot of info and talked with people about the live sharks not adapting or feeding well once in the new tank. I gambled with the live sharks after the eggs failed me. I ended up with a beautiful pair of black banded bamboo sharks. 1 was a little more finniky of an eater at first, but after a while he would eat just about anything.

I know what you mean, gathering from all that I have read the hatch rates for most shark eggs are not very good at all.

I will attempt live sharks instead of eggs b/c of the low hatch rates coupled with the time it would take them to reach sexual maturity. I'm not in a huge hurry, but I don't want to have to wait five years or more before they are able to reproduce. I hope to document my results if I am successful and maybe register the results with a national breeding registry or something similar to it.

 

[trigger happy]

merkywater;577103 wrote: Here you go man Diver's Den has a pair already mated for ya!

http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden/ItemDisplay.cfm?c=2733+3&ddid=100312">http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden/ItemDisplay.cfm?c=2733+3&ddid=100312</a>[/QUOTE]

Cool! Thanks for the information!

 

[trigger happy]

NanoNano;577139 wrote: Man I'd be all over that. I have a plan to have a room in the basement with a Shark tank for a pair like that, a rimless display reef tank, and a big frag tank as well.

That will be a really nice fish room! The two tanks in mine take up all the room now so I would have to expand into other parts of the basement and I already know my wife would not be happy about that! LOL!:doh:

 

[nanonano]

Trigger Happy;577350 wrote: That will be a really nice fish room! The two tanks in mine take up all the room now so I would have to expand into other parts of the basement and I already know my wife would not be happy about that! LOL!:doh:

Yeah wives tend to frown on that kind of thing.

 

[trigger happy]

bobbyp;577756 wrote: Any ideas where your buying these from? I know when i was looking, every website i found was rather pricy for them. I ended up getting a sweet deal threw my LFS. They came in very healthy and alot bigger than i expected at 9-10". They were also a few months older than freshly hatched which was a nice surprise.

That's a pretty good size at 9-10"!

Ocean Direct, or something of the sorts, sent me an email the other day and they were selling the brown banded bamboo sharks for $35 a piece plus shipping, but at that price I bet they have just been hatched. I really am unsure to be honest on where I will get them. I was thinking about Blue Zoo Aquatics.com maybe or Aquatic Connection.com

I have been searching for an online distributor that sells adult bamboo sharks but I have never found anyone that does so far and I think that shipping would just be nuts for a shark that size (i.e. crate!!) Yikes!

 

[trigger happy]

andregarcia_73;577919 wrote: Do yourself a favor and check reviews on aquacon. I have heard some bad stuff about them but have never personally never ordered. As far as shipping on a 17" shark its usually about $50. If it is a bigger shark you can pick it up at the airport for usually about $50-$100. It will depend on the size of the fish, crate, location, and destination. Have done this before but reccomend talking to a Lfs first and seeing if you could pre order with them as it will be local and save you a hassle. Also they may have lots of different sizes avail.

That kinda rings a bell about aquacon now that you mention it. Thanks for the shipping information that will help me figure out what to do and I think it would be best through a LFS too since I am not very fond of the airport in anyway!:up:

 

[trigger happy]

andregarcia_73;577920 wrote: Hopefully I can be helpful and answer some questioms ypu may have. If I can help you in anyway please let me know as I have been doing this for years and my sharks are fat and happy.

Thanks for the offer!!! I may need some help for sure once I get everything up and going with the fish and all. I am holding off for a little bit right now on the livestock as I want to buy more modules for my reef controller so that it will monitor salinity, PH, and (especially) control an A.T.O. prior to me putting the sharks or rays in the tank. The tank has such a large surface area that I am afraid that excessive evaporation will be an issue at certain times. I want to try and get everything right ahead of time. Thank you again! :up:

 

[KrisDeitz]

Id Check out Nemo Aquarium. Aaron is a good guy to work with and he had a few nice ones. Even has some eggs. Even has a nice stingray

 

[trigger happy]

Thanks PFCDeitz! I'll check that out right now! That would be great to find a good local supplier to work with on getting some sharks and rays.

 

[trigger happy]

Well I know it has been a while since a tank update has been posted. I have made some progress but as we all know progress costs money so after I catch my breath I'll post some more pictures when I get the funding for the next portion of this project. The pictures below were taken today (12/12/2010).

The tank is now actually a saltwater tank with aragonite sand and a fair amount of liverock. The layout will be a full reeflive rock ridge area on the far left side of the tank up to just below the surface of the water with a large tunnel running through the middle from one side to the otherside for the sharks to hide in and the rest will stay open sand with a small bed of sea grass (caleurpa algae, spelling?) on the left hand corner for the rays to hide in. Below are the updated pictures and the board across the tank is my "sky bridge", as I call it, that I use to arrange, clean, and repair things that are located on the back side of the tank. It acutally works well since the tank is 4 feet wide and very difficult to reach across.

I have also added a Digital Aquatics Reef Keeper Lite controller as you can see. I have already ordered the SL2 (system lab 2) module so that I will be able to monitor temp, PH, & Salinity electronically. I also ordered the float valve kit to run the A.T.O. which I will add within the next few weeks plus I will be (eventually) adding the lunar LED light module and the web module so that I can monitor and control it from the beach, the mountains, Starbucks, etc. etc. At any rate I hope you enjoy the pics and take care!:thumbs:
<fieldset class="gc-fieldset">
<legend> Attached files </legend>

>

class="gc-images" title="P1010008.jpg[/IMG] style="max-width:300px" /></a>

>

class="gc-images" title="P1010012.jpg[/IMG] style="max-width:300px" /></a>

>

class="gc-images" title="P1010014.jpg[/IMG] style="max-width:300px" /></a>

>

class="gc-images" title="P1010020.jpg[/IMG] style="max-width:300px" /></a>

>

class="gc-images" title="P1010025.jpg[/IMG] style="max-width:300px" /></a>

>

class="gc-images" title="P1010031.jpg[/IMG] style="max-width:300px" /></a>

>

class="gc-images" title="P1010033.jpg[/IMG] style="max-width:300px" /></a> </fieldset>

 

[trigger happy]

Thanks for the kind words everyone! I will keep the postings/updates coming from beginning to end.

I don't want to open a can of worms here but I still have not decided exactly what sharks I will end up with for sure. I of course have Scott Micheal's book which I was using as a foundation to begin with and then I started researching further on the internet about various smaller sharks and it is hard or impossible to get a lot of them that are mentioned in his book. I really really wanted the Colcloughs carpet shark but I just saw that it is on the "RED LIST/at risk" and that supposely only about 20 different specimens have ever been observed in the wild. It made me wonder why he even put it in the book other than to just tempt people like me perhaps.:doh:

I think as far as the captive breeding aspect, the "Eppies" are the way to go and that would reduce the need to import those expensive wild caught Epaulettes around here in Georgia anyways. If I do go that direction I like the Hallstrom's Epaulette Shark the best (spelling? likely wrong, sorry) but they are hard to find I hear and when http://www.liveaquaria.com">www.liveaquaria.com</a> actually had a mated pair they were "ON SALE" for $1000 which in my book is a lot, everyone else on sharks and rays central thought it was a steal. I hate to just try and breed brown banded bamboos, those shark eggs are everywhere, I think Wal-mart even has some in their goldfish tank, j.k.!

Does anyone know where I could get some slightly rare (ADULT, got to have Adult pretty much due to sexual maturity times of three to five years) sharks such as the Grey Bamboo Shark, Hallstrom's Epaulette shark, or Arabian Bamboo sharks from (preferably somewhat local)? I have searched all the online sources a ridiculous amount of times and the choices are surpirsingly few other than with the more common varieties of sharks. I have considered coral cats but they are pretty mean and pretty common too. I want to try something more rare, but still have a hardy and small species to work with. Someone was selling some captive bred chain coral cats for $500 a piece if anyone is interested, these are pretty darn rare but I don't like those that much nor the price tag considering it is a coral cat! LOL!

One more thing... I just found out that there is a short tail nurse shark that only grows to approx. 2.5ft. to 3ft in overall length so instead of getting a regular nurse shark on impulse that potentially grows to 9-14ft. this would be a better choice, but it will costs you more :up:. There is one of these for sale right now from a dealor at sharks and rays central but it is a $1000 dollars. Thanks for any help you can give me!