looking forward to sharks

[Kengaroo131]

im looking forward to setting up a shark tank in the near future. im using this time to do tons of research so i dont screw anything up. what are some of the small species of sharks that are avalible? what is a sharks minumum tank size requirment (im looking to go maby 175-200 gallons is that good?) is there any specail equipment needed? what is the style of habitat they would most enjoy? any type of advise would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

[reefer334]

Very Cool,I would sugest a cat shark of some sort.As for equipment I would use a sump with live rock in it and chaeto with an over sized skimmer ,much like a SPS reef setup.As for aquascaping I would go with fine sand for the bottom about 2-3 inches thick and some big cave just a couple so it can hide from the light of the day,just make sure the rocks cannot fall on the shark or be knocked over by it.Leave plenty of swimming room for the shark.I would go with a tank around 200 gallons or larger.I would aslo use led moonlights so you can see them in action at night,Make sure your tank is well established befror adding your shark.You can bump start this by using water out of a good clean system that does not contain copper and by using well cured live rock out of a established tank.I would also reccomend buying a ro/di unit for the water this help the cycling process to.Good luck and I hope this helps,feel free to ask more questions,Chris.

 

[Kengaroo131]

hmmm interasting. how much waste can a shark make cause i can just hook the tank up to my full system. all my tanks are conected total of about 105 gallons. but if the shark produces lots of waste then i might just want to have that seperately. also what skimmer would you recomend for a tank my size? it probably going to be about 255gallons all together.

 

[reefer334]

I would say that would be ok to run it all on one filteration system,but you will have high nitrates in your reef that way so I would suggest seperating the reef system.You say 225 is that just the shark tank size or the complete water volume of your system?I use asm skimmers on all of my tanks,I would reccomend a g-3 or a g-4x if you can afford it.One shark will not produce alot of waste but it will be more that a fish or 2 of decent size.I only feed my sharks 3-4 times a week,were as my fish get fed 2-3 times per day so I wouold say the waste is about the same as a fish the simular size or less.Chrs

 

[Kengaroo131]

just the shark system would be 255 gallons if i were to put it all on the same system it would be around 305 gallons. maby i can find a good used skimmer on rc.