Grey Carpetshark

About

The grey carpetshark (Chiloscyllium punctatum) is one of the few sharks realistically kept in home aquariums, though "home aquarium" is a relative term when you need at least 500 gallons to house one properly. Found across the Indo-West Pacific, from India and the Andaman Islands east to the Philippines and south to Australia, this species lives close to shore on coral reefs and in tide pools, where it spends most of its time working the bottom for small fish and invertebrates. Adults reach a solid three and a half to four feet, with a slender, muscular build and the slow, deliberate movements you expect from a shark that spends its life crawling rubble and reef flats rather than cruising open water. One of its more remarkable traits is its ability to tolerate air exposure for up to twelve hours, an adaptation that makes sense for a fish regularly stranded by tides. In the aquarium it behaves much like it does in the wild. Curious and active at times, but quick to retreat and hide when startled. Despite being listed as beginner-appropriate for a shark species, that label refers to its relative hardiness, not a suggestion that keeping a large predatory elasmobranch is straightforward. Thoughtful planning and a very large, species-appropriate setup are non-negotiable.