The leopard shark (also called the zebra shark) is a calm, spotted shark that spends a lot of its time resting on the sandy bottom. It needs very little space compared to other sharks and lives happily in groups, which makes it a perfect second shark species for a big tank.
Group size
- Up to 20 in one group.
- Two males and two females is a good starting group.
Buying leopard sharks
- Check the market a few times. Gold-rated leopard sharks sometimes appear for around 170 credits, which is a bargain.
- As always, look at longevity, immunity and fertility before buying.
- Quarantine them before they go into the tank.
Building the tank
- Salt water. Set salinity in the filtration settings.
- A sandy floor. Fine sand works well.
- A shared reef or open-ocean tank.
- Feeders that keepers can reach. In big aquariums, scuba diver keepers will swim in to refill them.
Leopard sharks get on with blacktip reef sharks, sardines, rays and plenty of reef fish, so they're easy to add to an existing tank. Check the cohabitation list first.
Research
Leopard shark research doesn't have the release blocks that many land animals have, so you can start straight away. Put a vet on it to unlock thriving requirements and an education fact sheet.
Babies and boxing
Leopard sharks breed in captivity. Early on, baby leopard sharks often got boxed (stuck in a crate), especially after draining or rebuilding a tank. Patches have improved this a lot, but if you see a boxed baby, move it back into the tank manually.
Tips
- In an open-ocean mega tank, leopard sharks fill the floor while sardine shoals and bigger sharks fill the water above. That layering makes a tank look much fuller.
- They're a good "space-saving" shark. If your filtration is maxed out, a leopard shark adds a shark species without much extra water.