fish tank?

[southslide 0]

gday fellas, thinking about setting up a fairly large salt water tank to keep a small bronzie or 7gill shark in.how hard would this be to do as i have never had a salt water fish tank, and as for feed i was gunna catch mullet, tommies etc. to keep in the tank aswell, feedback and ideas would be great.cheers ss

[dutchy 451]

Use a swimming pool :whistle: Don't use even a large tank need HUGE tank :S Marine tanks are expensive to set up and maintain

[sbarnden 397]

You would need a quite large ROUND tank.Square tanks don't work for sharks as they hate getting stuck in the corners and can drown if they can't keep swimming and getting water over their gills.I would say you need a tank with a radius of one and half to two lengths of the shark you want to keep in it minimum. You would want to talk to a marine biologist first since sharks are pretty specialized for aquariums and you would want some pretty specific advice.It would also be a lot of work keeping the water clean and aerated for it.

[Ben m 0]

You cant possibly wanna take somethin that grows massive like that out of the ocean and keep as a pet? You would obviously need a set up near on the size of the melb aquarium for it to not be considered cruel. IMO putting one of those sharks in an aquarium would just be sentencing it to a slow death unless you wanna be filling it up with new saltwater every day or 2. There are thousands of other aquarium fish you could keep as pets that would be much easier and 99.9% of what we have here in aus is tank raised anyways(not sure on marines think some are still harvested from the wild). Seen a mangrove jack for sale in the aquarium shop few weeks ago and that looked real tough. Sorry if this sounds like a bit of a rant mate but honestly i dont think its a great idea.

[Skudded 0]

I think you can buy small sharks for fish tanks, taking one from the wild I would think would kill it, but a tank raised shark would survive.

[Ben m 0]

me and the mrs seen some small saltwater reefy sorta lookin sharks at one of the aquarium shops recently. They were awesome.

[southslide 0]

if i did decide to do this it would be in a very large tank and yes i would be changing the water often with fresh salt water, and for this size thing i think it would be the same as many other animals they will only grow to their surroundings?? if it did get too big off to the ocean once again, i own a samoyed and a missus........ i know how to maintane things lol a fish tank is NOTHING hahah

[statesquider 0]

how big a shark are you thinking of dude? we're talking hundreds if not thousands of litres of water... you'd want to have a LOT of money to keep the tank going. Tank's gonna have to be huge...

[afishyfish 4]

gday fellas' date=' thinking about setting up a fairly large salt water tank to keep a small bronzie or 7gill shark in.how hard would this be to do as i have never had a salt water fish tank, and as for feed i was gunna catch mullet, tommies etc. to keep in the tank aswell, feedback and ideas would be great.cheers ss[/quote']We're gonna need a bigger tank :whistle: Probably an idea that sounds good on the surface, but not so good in theory

[sbarnden 397]

Looking at the numbers a 7 gill or bronzie wouldn't really be possible (they grow far too large for anything that could be considered hobby sized)They might survive for a while a juveniles but would outgrow the tank very quickly (maybe a year or two?).A Pt Jackson or gummy shark on the other hand could be done at home. You would need a aquarium of somewhere in the range of 4000L+ and a lot of dedication to maintaining the water quality. As well as a shaded or indoor location that could have that size of aquarium in it.If you were really serious about trying it you would probably have to look at constructing a tank somewhere in the vicinity 2.5x2.5x1m size or larger in a shaded or indoor location (like a large shed) with gently rounded corners that would prevent the shark from getting stuck nose first.It wouldn't be able to be glass so you would have to look at moulded perspex or something. (unless you constructed a solid tank with glass windows along straight siding components)You would need some heavy duty filtering and conditioning equipment to maintain the water health and a chiller so it doesn't get too warm in summer.Given the amount of space in it you should be able to have a gummy or pt jackson (or maybe even one of each) as well as a range of other active cold water fish that should be able to avoid being eaten (especially if you keep your sharks fairly well fed) but there would be a massive cost in time, effort and consumables such as electricity, food and water treatment chemicals.Gummy and Pt Jacksons would also adapt better to tank feed since they tend to scavenge bottom feed naturally.

[negruky 0]

For seven gills and bronzies this is not a good idea at all the only way you would be able to keep these kinds of fish u would be looking at a rough guesstimate of a price of around 70 thou which in other words means u need a large pool with a complex filtration system or a small scale sydney aquarium. Not to mention the space needed as well as the price of upkeep and time it will take up. The only shark species i see u succesfully keeping in an aquarium of any sort of size stature are sharks like epaulettes and cat sharks and smaller species of carpet sharks and then again u would need to spend probably 10 thousand plus to be able to keep these fish happy. Its not as simple as u may think.