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my walmart had these sharks that looked like RTBS but had white fins instead of red and i cant remember the name what are these?

Are you thinking of a bala shark? [link=http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/profiles/silvershark.xml]http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/profiles/silvershark.xml" style="COLOR: #808080[/link]

These guys are peaceful, but get really big. Were you wanting to buy one?

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

definatly not its look exactly like a RTBS but instead of red fins it has white

I saw these guys as well at the local Petcetera. They were labelled as "White Finned Rainbow Shark".
The manager, a friend of mine, said they are just a new color morph of the rainbow shark that breeders have come out with.


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I've never heard of them before, but I would like to add that you shouldn't buy balas. Firstly, they're endangered, secondly, they don't breed in the aquarium. They need a ban on balas.

Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 12-Nov-2004 21:39

Cup_of_Noodles:
"I've never heard of them before, but I would like to add that you shouldn't buy balas. Firstly, they're endangered, secondly, they don't breed in the aquarium. They need a ban on balas."

[font color="#800080"] Actually, Bala Sharks are bred in Captivity. If you check many of the online stores,[www.liveaquaria.com] they will say under "Origin: Farm Raised, Thailand ".
I believe these fish have been farm bred and raised in captivity for at least 20 years. There is no way you would find so many hundreds of thousands of tiny baby bala sharks in the stores if they werent farm raised! Also, If the Thai people can breed Arapaima Gigas on Fish Farms- they can definetly breed bala sharks.
Bala Sharks are one of the "Staple" fish of the Aquarium Trade world-wide. They definetly are breeding them in captivity.


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Farm raised can mean one of two things--either commercially bred and raised or wild caught and raised. Breeding is rare in captivity and has never been officially documented in the aquarium as far as I know. Nowhere in the world (even in the fish capitals of Japan, Germany, and SE Asia) has there been documentation of balas being bred commercially. If there's is no way one can find so many tiny baby balas, how do you explain the large number of cardinal tetras (among others)spilling into store, the vast majority of which are wild caught youngsters. And, well, if they're on the IUCN red list, they're definitely not thriving.