Is a id shark suitable for the home aquarium ?

bast1981 · New member Joined: 03 Jun 2006 Posts: 2

Hello,

My favortire freshwater fish is the id shark. It's a shark look a like fish. I like true marine shark but as those fish are better off in the ocean. I prefer having a looka like only. Although i've met someone who keep a nurse shark into a 500 gallon tank in her home. A fish that can get to 12 feet. So why should i feet bad about thinking about keeping a id shark that gets only 3 to 4 feet. Question

Everybody is saying that it's not suitable for the home aquarium and that you need a swiming pool to keep one. So i would like your adivce. I am planning on buying a 48" tank. I know it's really not enough but i gonna upgrade the tank as the fish grow. Would a 4 feet tank be ok for some time ?

t_chelle16 · Moderator Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 3436

Absolutely not. Just because you know someone with a huge fish in a horribly small tank, that doesn't make it any better for you to do it.

Not only do iridescent sharks get huge (4 feet long as you know), they are very fast, active swimmers and prefer to be kept in groups. They also grow fairly quickly (it will mostly likely outgrow a 4' tank in under a year). To properly house iridescent sharks, a tank should be at least 1 1/2x their body length wide (6 feet), 4x their body length long (16 feet long) and 3/4x their body length tall (3 feet). That would work out to over 2000 gallons and I would consider the bare minimum and still quite cramped.

Serioulsy, that fish has almost no place in the aquarium/fish keeping hobby.

-Chelle

bast1981 · New member Joined: 03 Jun 2006 Posts: 2

Thanks for your replies. I saw a custom made tank for freshwater shark in a petstore. The tank was like cylindral. The tank was 8 feet wide by 4 feet high or something like that. It holds something like 1000 gallon of water.

So yes is it a pool as you can stand inside and bath inside.

t_chelle16 · Moderator Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 3436

Iridescent sharks would need long & wide tanks. Put it in a cylindrical tank and all it could do is swim in circles (it would probably end up killing itself by running into the glass). That tank would be TOTALLY unsuitable for an iridescent shark.

Like a said before, if you wanted to be able to properly keep an iridescent shark, you really should have a tank no shorter than 16 feet long and 6 feet wide (in this case, dimensions & shape are more important than actual water volume - although to have the proper dimensions, there would be a LOT of water).

-Chelle