Sharks and big fish

J

Jurek7

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
I wonder which of larger sharks, rays and big fish like groupers, arapaimas, pacus etc. breed in big aquariums and how regular? How long they live? Could aquariums become self-sustainable on them?


Not that captive breeding is always necessary. It often seems a good idea to import wild fish from sustainable wild reserves, which local people protect precisely for this reason.
 
many species of sharks and rays are bred regularly in captivity.

The osteoglossids (arapaima, arowana, etc) are generally bred in artificial pools or reservoirs in South America and southeast Asia (because of their requirements I doubt that arapaima have ever been bred in an aquarium situation). Captive-bred ones are widely available.

Baby pacu can be readily bought in pet shops worldwide but I suspect they are probably wild-caught (if not, then it would be the same as with osteoglossids - bred in ponds in the tropics rather than in aquariums).

I doubt very much if such marine fish as groupers have been bred in aquariums, although some species may have been in marine fish farming ventures. When larger marine bony fish are produced in captivity it is generally from growing up wild-collected eggs or fry, and is more often experimental (especially as food for humans) than an attempt to sustain display populations.
 
Jurek7 said:
Not that captive breeding is always necessary. It often seems a good idea to import wild fish from sustainable wild reserves, which local people protect precisely for this reason.
Click to expand...

This may be more suitable for another thread but I'm just wondering if above exists anywhere? Sustainable wild reserves that are conserved by locals so they can catch a few for selling to zoos and alike? Most of these larger fish (the fast-growing pacu being the exception) are long-living species that are highly susceptible to catching and would require massive areas to sustain even a few caught every year.

Chlidonias already commented on the captive breeding of most but it should be mentioned that most pelagic sharks (e.g. most species from the genus Carcharhinus that are kept in captivity) still rarely are bred in captivity. The more commonly bred sharks are mainly relatively small species like bamboo sharks, bullhead sharks and smooth-hounds and benthic species like nurse sharks, wobbegongs and whitetip reef shark. Add to that a few species like lemon shark and grey nurse shark, but even those are generally in so small numbers that the captive populations cannot be considered self-sustaining. Some rays have been bred but by far most you see in aquariums are wild-caught. Due to the social breeding behavior of many larger groupers they would be impossible to get to breed except in the most massive aquariums that could house many fully grown individuals and I don't think that ever has been seriously tried.

This page may be useful:
http://www.colszoo.org/internal/elasmo_2005/page2.htm
 
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Sort of on the same topic; there WAS the virgin birth of the black-tip reef shark in Viginia recently.

Shark "Virgin Birth" Confirmed

There's also documented cases of the same thing happening in Hammerhead sharks. The problem of course in these cases was that the zoo and aquarium officials weren't expecting any pregnancies...so of those that did make it to term they were eaten by other sharks in the tank. So not really sure if that answers your question or not...definetely wouldn't be sustainable...unless evolution continued and all sharks were parthenogenic within the next hundred years :)
 
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