Scientific Name: Balantiocheilos melanopterus

Comments
Bala Sharks are beautiful, graceful, energetic, and mild tempered. They are one of the very best aquarium fish and form beautiful schools. Bala Sharks are more susceptible to ich and shimmy than most other tropical fish. Click here for information about how to recognize some of the Signs of Stress and Disease in fish. Click here for advice about a treatment for fish that show Signs of Stress and Disease.

Appropriate Home
Eventually a large aquarium with an exterior power filter with a BIO-Wheel filter, a maximum of 1/4-inch of gravel, and an aquarium heater adjusted to between 78 and 82-degrees F. Click here for more about warm water aquariums.

All Sharks are jumpers, so the aquarium they live in must have a cover with no holes. Click here for more information about aquarium covers.

Recommended Diet
Floating flake food plus some freeze dried blood worms, which are actually mosquito larvae. Both of these foods are available in most stores, where pet fish are sold. Also occasionally feed Bala Sharks a few live Black Worms and live or frozen brine shrimp. Click here for more about feeding fish. I feed these fish a few Black Worms every other day. Click here for more about Black Worms.

Compatibility
Bala Sharks are a schooling fish that will not be comfortable in a school with less than six Bala Sharks. Good tank mates for Bala Sharks are all Gouramis, all Barbs including Tinfoil Barbs, all Danios, all Rainbows, a few Spiny Eels, one Red Tail Shark or one Rainbow Shark, and  a school of Clown Loaches.
 
Click here to read about several groups of compatible fish.

Many years ago I sold tropical fish each week to a local pet store. The owner was very nice and friendly. Every week we would look at his 200-gallon aquarium for a few minutes. It was a display tank in the middle of his fish department. He didn't sell the fish from this display tank. It was his pride and joy with his special fish, and he especially loved the school of Bala Sharks with six or eight of them all about 7" long.

He'd bought the Balas from me a few years before, when they were only about 2.5" long, and he'd raised them up. He fed them lots of floating flakes and some live brine shrimp. After they got to be about 7", they stopped growing. He thought they were full size. He did just about everything right. The food was very good and plentiful. He gave them partial water changes, kept the filter clean, and they seemed to stop growing at about 7".

I continued to sell him fish for another three or four years and saw his Balas each week. They seemed to get a little bit thicker and a little longer, but they were still about 7" long. They didn't look stunted. Stunted fish sometimes have shorter finds and don't seem to be very energetic. Once in a while he and I talked about his Balas, and we were pretty sure that 7" was about the maximum size for Bala Sharks.

Several years later I was stunned, when I saw a 14" Bala Shark. I've always kind of kept track of the biggest fish of each species that I've ever seen, and I've been careful to judge the size carefully. I wondered, if this 14" Bala Shark was really the same species, and I wondered how old this huge Bala Shark might be, and where it came from.

From time to time I hear well intentioned but rather cross advice to new aquarists, who are told something like, "You really shouldn't get Bala Sharks because they will soon grow to 14", and it isn't fair to keep them in a little aquarium." Well they probably won't grow to 14", even with the best of care, but they might grow to 7" and have a nice long healthy life. It will take several years for them to grow to 7". You might start with six of them at about 2.5" long in a 30-gallon aquarium with a few other compatible fish.

In a couple of years, when your Balas have grown to be 4" long, they'll need a bigger aquarium, and eventually they'll need at least a 75-gallon aquarium. By then you'll probably love your Bala Sharks as much as my customer loved his, and you'll be glad to get them a bigger aquarium, whenever they need one.

This story points out that Bala Sharks get very large. When they mature at say 7+ inches long, or maybe bigger, it may be possible to determine their gender by their shape. For example, the female Bala Sharks may fill with eggs and look plumper. But this is just my speculation, and I don't know of any way to determine the gender of Bala Sharks 4" or smaller like the size yours probably is.

Incidentally, you should keep your Bala in a group of Balas with a least six Balas in the group.