Buy Bala Sharks for Sale
Click
here
to shop
online for
Bala Sharks
now.
This video shows a 7" Bala Shark swimming behind a much bigger Bala Shark, which you can barely see in the upper right corner of
this video.
Click on the images above.
We have lots of Bala Sharks for sale at our online retail tropical fish store. Click
here
to see the complete list of Sharks for sale in our
facility. Click
here for more about how to buy fish from us.
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.
This beautiful Bala Shark is about 7" long. It grew to this size in an aquarium with over 120-gallons of water. There is a story
about raising Bala Sharks at the bottom of this page.
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.
The advertisement, shown below, links to
this advertiser's web site.
Click
here to read about several groups of compatible fish.
Gallery of Bala Shark
Pictures
Shown above,
a young Bala Shark about
1.5" long for sale in
one of our aquariums,
and the picture was
taken by one of us.
Shown
above, the same Bala
Shark, who has been eating well
and growing fast for about three
weeks and is now more than 2"
long. It's lots of fun watching
a fish like this growing and
becoming more and more
beautiful.
Size and Lifespan
Bala Sharks can grow to at least 14" and live for several years, probably many years.
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.
Reply. Hello Judy. I don't know how to determine the gender of Bala Sharks. Please go to the top of this page and read about Bala Sharks,
including the story just above about Bala Sharks.
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.
The advertisement, shown below, links to
this advertiser's web site.
Click
here
to verify our "PayPal Reputation",
which shows we have been selling on PayPal since 2002,
and we've sold items to thousands of satisfied customers.
Holliday Gift Idea
PayPal Gift Certificates
Click on
the orange button, just below, to buy
a PayPal Gift Certificate for
someone, who loves pet fish.
Best Selling
Books
Click here
now to order The Simple
Guide to Freshwater
Aquariums, a bestselling
reference, offering an
easy-to-understand look at
setting up and maintaining a
successful first freshwater
aquarium.
Click here
now
to order The New Marine
Aquarium: Step-By-Step setup
and stocking Guide, the best
selling book about starting
a new marine aquarium.
Click
here
now to order 500 Freshwater
Aquarium Fish: A Visual
Reference to the Most
Popular Species, a beautiful
book, lovingly written and
illustrated, with
information for the beginner
or the longtime enthusiast.
Click here
now to order Fancy Goldfish:
A Complete Guide ... by Eric L. Johnson,
DMV, and Richard E. Hess. The most
encompassing and thorough treatment of the
fancy goldfish hobby to date. Hardcover with
176 pages.
•
Unlimited FREE Two-Day Shipping
•
No minimum order size
•
One-Day shipping for $3.99/item
•
Unlimited, commercial-free, instant
streaming
of 5,000 movies and TV shows.
•
Join Amazon Prime for $79/year. Click
here
now to learn more about Amazon
Prime.
About our Fish Photographs ...
Almost all the photographs and videos, shown on this web site, were taken
by us in our aquariums of our fish. Compare the healthy,
beautiful, energetic fish in our beautiful aquariums to the
fish in our competitors pictures. Their fish often look thin
with clamped fins and poor color.
We buy the highest quality fish, produced by the best fish
farms or caught by the best collectors of wild fish, then we take incredibly good care of our fish in our beautiful aquariums. If you compare the pictures on this site to our competitors pictures, you can instantly see, our fish and aquariums are better!
;^ }
Will the fish you get from us look like the fish in our pictures? No! This is similar to buying kittens and puppies, that will change as they grow to become cats and dogs. We stock and ship fish that are the ideal size to sell. Not so small that they will not do well when shipped. Yet not so big that they have become much more expensive. The fish in almost all of our pictures were young fish like the ones we have for sale that we raised up, and you can too!
How
to Customize
this Page
If this web page looks too small or too narrow, hold down
the keyboard key marked "Ctrl" then press down on the key
marked +, and this web page should get bigger. If you overdo it,
and this page gets too big, hold down the same "Ctrl" key
and press down on the key marked - to make this page
smaller.
Repeat, until this
page looks just right to you. In this way you can customize
the appearance of our website in your computer. This tip
will work simultaneously on all the pages in this website,
and your computer should remember what you've done the next
time you come back to this site, unless you're using an
ancient version of a browser. ;^
o
The advertisement, shown below, links to
this advertiser's web site.
IMPORTANT:
Your use of this website constitutes your acceptance
of our Privacy
Agreement and Terms of Use including our Disclaimer.
Click here to
read
our Disclaimer, and click
here to
read our Privacy Agreement.
Click
here for
our street address, phone number, fax, and email
address.
Click
here for information about advertising on this website.
AquariumFish.net
is not affiliated with
AquariumFish.com.
