Marbled Bamboo Cat Shark

General information

The Bamboo Shark has barbels at the mouth look like cat whiskers and has a brown-colored body with broad tan stripes and spots. The Bamboo Shark is a bottom dwelling shark that is common in the home aquarium. It will eat any crustacean in the aquarium. It stays relatively small but requires a very large aquarium as an adult. It requires sand as the substrate as the abdomen is easily scratched by a coarser substrate, which may lead to an infection. It should never be exposed to copper-based medications.

Carnivor - Enjoys meaty food, feeding may be difficult in the beginning, and a stressed shark could fast for weeks before eating. When first introduced to your aquarium, small pieces of cleaned squid or live saltwater feeder shrimp should be used to entice them to eat. Shark eat a variety of chopped crustaceans including shrimp, scallops, slices of fresh marine fish, whole cockle in the shell, fresh shrimp, and squid, and frozen mussel is ideal. You should not feed by hand, if needed use a large feeding stick.

Should be feed 2-4 times a week, avoid overfeeding. Sharks should eat 3-5% of their body weight per week. Baby sharks should be feed small amounts daily.

A sharks belly should not bulge in size unless the shark is pregnant, if you start to see a large belly on the shark you should reduce the amount you are feeding.

Freezing their food for 7 days or more can help kill off any parasites or bacteria that is in the food. Food that has been frozen for more than 12 months should not be fed to the shark. Try to use your food before 6 months have passed.

Soaking foods in a liquid vitamin provides a boost in vitamins and minerals important to this shark's health. They also require a supplemental source of iodine to prevent goiter disease.

Look for claspers. Male sharks' pelvin fins are equipped with pairs of slender long claspers. These claspers jut out from the foundations of the pelvic fins, and are necessary for mating. The claspers of immature male sharks are a lot more subtle than those of adults, but they're still clearly visible.

Female sharks don't have claspers, so if you're looking around the pelvic fins, you'll see only their cloacas. These cavities are necessary not only for breeding but also for the elimination of waste. The males also have cloaca's.

Sharks are prone to developing a goiter, a lump that appears on the outside of the throat area. Starting out as a small lump, over time it can develop into a very large growth that blocks the shark's throat, which prevents it from eating. A goiter is the result of the lack of iodine in the shark's diet. It takes many months for one to develop, and takes just as long to reverse it. It's important to take steps to supplement the shark's diet with needed iodine when a goiter is first noticed. If left alone, it will continue to grow larger to the point where the shark slowly dies from starvation.

Course sand and live rock can scratch sharks especially on their bellies which can easily get infected. Make sure to provide a soft sand substrate to avoid.

Sharks are not reef-safe: They will nip at and eat crustaceans and coral and eat smaller, less aggressive tankmates. It's a good idea to keep sharks in a fish-only aquarium with relatively large, aggressive species that can hold their own with a shark. Ideal tankmates include Eels, Groupers, Snappers, Hawks, Hogs, Rabbits, Lions/Scorpions, Grunts/Sweetlips, Sharks and Rays, larger Angels, Parrots, Tangs/Surgeonfishes.

Triggers and Puffers will nip at the shark's fins and cause them to get stressed out and could stop eating.

Copper-based medications should never be used on this shark, so be sure to read the labels on products carefully.

Sharks normally come large bags or cooler making them too large to float if that is the case then try to drip acclimate the shark, once you start the process try to complete the acclimation process within one hour.