Bala sharks

[patoloco]

That is what I thought, but I read several articles yesterday by people who had them in 200g+ tanks and had them for about 10-15 years and they were all about 8 inches.

I have mine in a 230 gallon tank, it's L shaped and only 18" tall, so it gives what we could call a lot of swimming space. However, these balas can cross it in less than 3 seconds.

My belief is a bala should ideally be kept in a tank no less than 15 ft long, what makes a monstruos gallonage.


P.S. Gallonage: amount of gallons. I just made up that word. Don't know if it really exists in English. If not, consider me a discoverer.

 

[Holly9937]

How long is each side of your tank? Just curious how those are layed out. I got started on this b/c I was looking up how to sex them, which I guess is not possible till they are around 5 inches, which mine are. 2 of them are really going at each other lately, what seems like a mating thing more than playing or fighting. I started a thread about the topic a while ago, I'm going to see if I can dig it up

 

[patoloco]

My tanks is shaped like this:

It's 0.50 / 19" tall.


the blue marked zone iz the Twillight Zone. For glass reflections and stuff, I cannot see what's going on there unless I look from top.

 

[sardesign]

Sar, how long is your tank? Mine is 6 feet, but for a foot long fish, it just doesn't seem big enough, but for a 8 inch fish, it seems much more possible!! I'm just starting to think this might be one of the handful of fish that rarely achieve their supposed "max" size, even in proper conditions (and I mean tanks kept much better and bigger than mine )

My tank is 5 feet long and 2 feet wide. I thought this would be a good size for the fish until i move and get a bigger tank. The Balas shouldn't outgrow this one for at least two to three years. I would really like to make a 10 foot long aquarium but that all depends on whether or not I can get a house first.

 

[MattyJFly]

Matt, are they at the shedd aquarium?

Indeededly. It was rather funny, because they had several tanks next to eachother that basically had common cichlids and household-freshwer-tank fish. I guess I expected more from that section. But yeah, the shedd aquarium.


EDIT:
Yeah they get to look like this. Chubby bastids:
http://aquatic-hobbyist.com/phpBB2/images/JanS/bala2.jpg

 

[sardesign]

How long is each side of your tank? Just curious how those are layed out. I got started on this b/c I was looking up how to sex them, which I guess is not possible till they are around 5 inches, which mine are. 2 of them are really going at each other lately, what seems like a mating thing more than playing or fighting. I started a thread about the topic a while ago, I'm going to see if I can dig it up

I have heard that it is nearly impossible (if at all) to sex bala sharks. From what I have read, they need to mate at incredibly fast speeds and would require a tank at least 10 meters (about 34 feet) long. I could have read wrong information but more than one reference had the same information.