Saltwater Aquarium Adventures
The wonders of nature as it unfolds.

www.geoaquarium.org

Letter From The Editor:
I have been in the saltwater aquarium hobby for over 30 years. Many things have changed over the past few decades and great advances have been made both in the types of equipment available and the livestock that can be sustained. This website is an educational journey that I would like to share with you based on some of my personal experiences.

I hope I can introduce you to a wonderful hobby and help others learn by reading and watching the amazing videos that are to posted soon. These are real life adventures. They are both entertaining and rewarding, see for yourself.

I brought home a shark egg case about 5 weeks old and put it in one of my saltwater tanks today. It is a Banded Bamboo shark based on the shape, size, color and texture of the egg case. I will post other videos as the embryo matures and finally hatches. You can see the yolk sac, umbilical cord and the developing external gills. The rapid movement helps promote circulation of the water within the egg case and absorption of oxygen by the developing embryo.

This is a video of the removal of the immature baby shark from the natural egg case and transfer to a clear plastic incubator for the remainder of the developmental process. It will be kept in dimmed lighting until maturity is reached.

The egg case is about 11 weeks old now and the outside surface has started to turn opaque. It is now hard to see the baby shark development clearly like before. I have researched and there are many public aquariums that remove a section of the egg case and use a clear plastic patch as a window to view the development inside. This process is usually done around this stage of the maturity of the baby shark. I have transferred and encased the baby in a clear plastic container with small vent holes for water circulation (as naturally occurring in the egg case). The baby shark will be kept in dimmed lighting until it is fully mature and when ready it will be removed from the plastic container for free swimming and eating on its own. The depletion of the yolk sac will be the indicator as to when that time has come.

This is a work in progress and I plan on documenting the whole event as it happens. The whole process takes about 150 days from egg production to new born. As the baby shark matures I will research and prepare some supporting videos for you to view on the overall life cycle of the Banded Bamboo Shark. Stay tuned, this is going to be a very cool event. The wonders of nature as it unfolds.