I recently read an article about how Doctors are the third leading cause of death for humans. Which if you think about that for a second is astounding. No a car accident won’t kill you but your family doctor will. Makes me like homeopathic treatment even more. That got me to thinking, what is the leading cause of death for saltwater animals?
We didn’t research enough about that one particular coral or fish. We saw it at the LFS (Local Fish Store) and just had to have it. We fell victim to another problem with marine aquarists: “Buying something because it looked pretty”. Granted if your a guy you fell victim to something equally as deadly: “Buying something because it looked cool.” No we didn’t take the time to research. We opened up our wallet grabbed our plastic credit card and slapped it down.
Recently I got an email from an alert reader which went to the LFS and bought a new addition. I swear I am not making this up. Our reader, whose name shall remain anonymous, purchased a Cat shark for her home aquarium. She mentioned that he was about 7 inches long and seemed to get along with the other fish in the aquarium. Wait. There are other fish in the aquarium? I am sure they larger fish that will not fit in the mouth of the friendly Cat shark, right? Our reader continues: “Well, I put the shark in which I named ‘sharky’ and the next morning I could find any of my other fish, I looked and looked but could not find them. I even looked in my sump and filters. They didn’t jump out, as I didn’t find them on the floor anywhere. Any idea of where they went?”
You might want to rename your friendly shark to “Mr. Hungry”. Sharks are generally not friendly.
At least our reader knew that a shark needed a much larger tank to live in. Sadly, research was not spent on what can be kept with sharks. (water and rocks) Before you buy anything, always research before you do, your fish (or corals) will greatly appreciate it.
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