Training a shark to participate in its own husbandry care. How do you get a nearly 8 foot long free swimming shark out of the water for a checkup? With a sea lion or sea otter the animal can be trained to get into a transport kennel when asked. Nicky, an Aquarium of the Pacific aquarist, decided to train Fern the Zebra Shark to willingly swim onto a transport stretcher using the same training techniques used to train marine mammals. Fern is a Zebra Shark. The scientific name is Stegastoma fasciatum. Fern is 18 years old, weighs 137 pounds and is 7.7 feet long. Aquarium aquarist Nicky decided to target train Fern to make it easier to give this large shark its veterinary checkups. Targeting is a technique used by our marine mammal staff to train our sea lions, seals and sea otters. The animal learns that by touching a target pole that has a float or ball on the end with its nose or other parts of its body it will receive a reward of food. This is the basis of many of the behaviors that you see our mammals doing during a show such as a back flip or entering a kennel.

Nicky started teaching Fern to target on a target pole back in March of this year. While she hand fed Fern with a pair of tongs in Shark Lagoon a target pole was placed nearby to link it with the food. Soon the shark started to associate the pole with food and learned to swim towards it during a feeding session. When an object (target pole) or action is associated by an animal with a reinforcement (food) the process is known as operant conditioning. With the association in place the next step was to introduce a transport stretcher into the water during a feeding session. Marine mammal trainers call this desensing an animal. By getting an animal used to a new object in its environment during a rewarding time such as during a feed it learns to positively relate to or at least not negatively react to the change in its surroundings. With the stretcher in place a series of progressive approximations were then used to teach Fern to willingly place himself on it. Progressive approximation is another way of saying learning by taking baby steps.

By breaking a desired behavior down to its individual components you can use a series of small easily obtainable actions to reach the desired final behavior. For instance, Fern’s stretcher behavior could be broken down to: Head toward the target pole.fish tank motor setup Head toward the target pole near the stretcher.fish tank light australia Head toward the target pole while it touches the stretcher.fish tank stand on ebay Head toward the target pole on the stretcher.fish tank water too cloudy Follow the target pole across the stretcher.fish tank cheap uk

Sit calmly in the stretcher. Sit calmly in the stretcher while it’s being raised. Each behavior approximation is progressively rewarded until the desired final behavior is achieved. This is where Fern is now. All of this training was reliant on the positive relationship that Nicky had built up with Fern over time. cheapest aquarium fish in indiaJust like with a sea lion or sea otter the animal has to trust the person training it. Fern trusts the aquarists. I have to admit that although I’ve helped train some of our marine mammals to do some pretty cool behavior watching this large shark being trained to participate in its own health care was one of the neatest examples of BF Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning being put to good use that I’ve ever witnessed. Kudos to Nicky the Aquarist and Fern the Zebra Shark! A target pole is used to lead Fern the Zebra Shark onto the transport stretcher.

The husbandry training of Fern would not have been possible without the trusting relationship that aquarist Nicky (in the water) had built up with the shark. Fern being lifted up out of the water by staffers Lauren and Brittany while Nicky steadies the stretcher. Fern by the stretcher. By having the shark participate in its own health care the amount of stress to the animal during a medical procedure is greatly reduced. All blogs and comments represent the views of the individual authors and not necessarily those of the Aquarium.Feeding an aquarium seems simple enough. Buy a jar of flake food, and toss some in, right? Actually, that really isn’t a good idea for a variety of reasons. Hopefully you’ll find the following information helpful for your own specific needs. Foods come in many forms, including sheets, flakes, pellets, frozen, refrigerated, liquid, and live. Flake food is convenient, easy to dose, and relatively inexpensive. A few things to keep in mind are that it should be kept in a cool dry place, not sitting on the canopy where the heat of your lighting can ruin it.

Never pour the food into your tank, as an accident may occur which will dump excessive amounts of flake food into the water polluting the tank. It is better to take a pinch of food, and submerge your fingers in the water while releasing the food in the current. This will allow your fish to eat without gulping down air trying to eat from the surface. Keep in mind that flake foods are known to add to phosphate issues, so if your tank suffers from nuisance algae, it would be better to reduce the amount of flake food feedings. *Please note there are a variety of types of flake food being made by companies such as Cyclop-Eeze and Brine Shrimp Direct that may be more nutritious than the more common kinds off the shelf. Pellet food comes in various sizes. Most smaller fish will not eat large or even medium sized pellets, so I buy small pellet foods like Formula One and Formula Two. Pellet food tends to sink but it would still be a good habit to submerge your fingers when feeding to prevent some from floating.

Pellets can be used to feed LPS corals, fish, and even your refugium. I’ve observed all kinds of creatures eat pellet food, such as bristleworms and even my mandarins. Avoid overdosing your tank with pellets, as these can end up polluting the water. Again, don’t pour it into your tank or set it on the edge as you may dump the container into the water accidentally. Sheet algae, referred to as Nori, is an excellent method for feeding herbivores such as tangs. Using a feeding clip, you can affix Nori to the glass and your fish can chew off small pieces over a period of time. If you are keeping tangs, please be aware that these fish graze all day long and don’t do well only being fed once a day. Clipping on some Nori in the morning and then feeding again in the evening tends to result in healthy plump tangs. Fresh foods, available at your local grocery store, asian market or fish market can be useful as well as varied. When shopping, buy saltwater-based product, such as squid, octopus, scallops, shrimp, clams and more.

It is not recommended to use freshwater-based livestock as food for saltwater species. If you have doubts, consult your local club or ask online before you make what could be a fatal mistake. Fresh food should be thorougly washed, and be specific and ask if the food has any preservatives or if it has been pre-cooked. If either of these have occured, it would be wise to pass on that selection. Here is my home-made frozen food recipe. Other fresh foods others have used are broccoli, romaine lettuce, and orange slices. Each of these contains vitamins that may be beneficial to some herbivorous fish, but is not found in the ocean. Be sure to wash these foods well to remove any pesticides that may poison your fish. Some are using broccoli to feed tangs, and blanch the florets in boiling water for 15 to 20 seconds to kill any parasites before offering this now-tender food to their fish. Fresh vegetables can be secured to a piece of rock with rubber bands or clipped to the glass with a food clip.

Frozen foods are always available at your local fish store (LFS). You can buy frozen brine shrimp, bloodworms, mysis, squid, scallops, krill, silversides, plankton and more. Some are sold in bars; others are sold in bubble packs where a cube can be used one by one. If you purchase Formula One and Formula Two, using one cube of each would provide some meaty food and some vegetable-based food to your livestock. Even though it comes in a cube doesn’t mean you have to use all of it that session. Cutting it in half, for example, allows you to tailor the amount of food being used. Cyclop-Eeze in frozen form is highly regarded food strong in HUFA fatty acids that fish need, and they love it. When purchasing frozen foods, consider what fish & corals you have, buying what they usually get in nature if possible. Krill, silversides and shrimp are all meaty foods that are used to feed anemones, eels, some LPS corals and even certain fish. Keeping some in the freezer guarantees that you’ll have food on hand when you need it.

Frozen foods should be thawed prior to being added to the tank, and is easily dissolved if left in a small dish filled with some tank water. Within 10 to 15 minutes it is ready to use. Frozen foods should never be left out on the counter, and if discovered later to be fully thawed or even room temperature, it would be best to dispose of it rather than risk poisoning your livestock. I wouldn’t risk it myself, and neither should you. Liquid foods are available and usually designed to feed filter feeders such as sponges and feather dusters. However, in recent years various plankton-based foods have come to market allow us to target corals, fish fry, as well as the pods in our system. LiquidLife BioPlankton and CoralPlankton is one such food that is kept in the freezer and yet stays in liquid form and can be fed to the tank late at night when coral polyp extension is at its greatest. Knowing your system’s total volume of water is very important because that is how you’ll determine how much food to dose.

Too much will pollute the system, and not enough will prove ineffective with poor results. Another liquid food used is Phytoplankton, whether it is purchased at the LFS or homegrown by the hobbyist. Phytoplankton has made my soft corals perk up, and micro-fauna in our tanks feed upon it. When buying it, be sure to check the expiration date, and smell it for freshness. If it smells spoiled, it is. Dosing it every other day is sufficient, and will result in good pod growth in your reef for some fish such as wrasses and mandarins to feed upon. When feeding phytoplankton, I’ve always turned off the protein skimmer for an hour to keep the food in the water longer. Live foods may be bloodworms, brine shrimp, ghost shrimp, rotifers and small feeder fish. Some fish need live food at least at first, and some demand it as long as they live. Ghost shrimp can be released in a tank for a Lion Fish to consume, as it gets hungry. Newly hatched brine shrimp can be fed to dwarf seahorses.

Rotifers are fed late at night for SPS corals to consume, and for newly hatched clown fish fry. Hatching brine shrimp is quite simple, and offering newly hatched baby brine shrimp to your livestock can be quite nutritious as the yolk sac is still attached at that point. If you feed the baby brine shrimp some phytoplankton six hours before you harvest them, they will be ‘gut-loaded’ and provide even more nutrition to your reef. Powdered foods such as Golden Pearls or ZoPlan can be used to feed livestock food in microscopic increments. One thing to know is that you can overfeed with these foods, causing massive algae outbreaks or making your skimmer overflow relentlessly. Both of these things have happened to me, so use these foods judiciously. If you have a tiny measuring spoon from a Salifert test kit, know that one tiny spoonful of Golden Pearls is plenty for a fully stocked 55g reef tank. Three little spoons may result in cyano bacteria for three weeks! Vitamins benefit your livestock, and one herb mostly recommended is garlic.