Silver Tipped Sharks?

Question

I have gotten so many of these catfish and they have all died. I now have an empty 120 gallon tank and would like to try again. I just need all the information I can get about these guys.

Answer 1

Are you keeping them in freshwater? If so, that's probably the problem. Silver-tips (or Colombian sharks, black-finned sharks, white-tipped, sharks, shark catfish - they go by a lot of names!) are a brackish water fish that will need full-strength seawater as adults.

Also check feeding information in the links below - they prefer live or frozen foods over pellets.

Answer 2

Silver tipped or Colombian sharks require brackish water. Add a little aquarium salt (1 TBSp. salt / 5 gal water) to your water before adding them. Since sharks do not have scales, their "skin" is very sensitive to factors like pH, ammonia, nitrates, nitrites, and water temp. Buy a water testing kit, or better yet bring a small water sample to Petco or Petsmart for a water analysis. They will determine what may be hurting your fish. Mine sometimes thrash and have spasms when my water gets too polluted. Look for irrational behavior when they swim - nervous ticks, thrashing, spinning in a tornado motion, loss of direction.

Also, being bottom feeders, these guys need sinking foods and frozen or dehydrated bloodworms. They will not usually eat flakes or floating pellets. (At least mine won't).

Keep water temps at around room temp between 69-76. Mine do fine at 74 degrees. I don't use a heater since I"m on the second floor of an apartment and heat rises.

Sharks are schooling fish and need companions. Try having at LEAST 3 similarly sized sharks in your tank. You will notice that they will buddy up and swim together. Once mine were at 5 inches I added a little one and it took a few days for the bigger sharks to accept him but now they are all friends.

Good luck - hope this helps!

Answer 3

When dealing with the aquarium trade you will often find that the common name given to many fish can be very confusing. I think both of the fish are the same thing. And just like you said, they are not sharks at all, they are a species of catfish! Good Luck!