Brown Banded Cat Shark not breathing on one side.  9/17/09
Hi, I have a brown banded cat shark who until last week ate really well.
Last week he started sniffing the food but, leaving it. Today I noticed that he is not breathing on the left side. His gills remain still a little puckered looking. I recently did a water change out and there were a few
days I think the tank was a little cold and the salt was low.
<... Spg must be high, stable for keeping sharks>
PH has been fine. The Tank is only 72 gallons and I know he needs to be rehomed soon.
<Too small...>
He is housed with a Cortez stingray and a Zebra Eel.
<The Ray is a coldwater animal... may stick the shark...>
I just recently treated the tank for Cloud eye on a Stingray who ended up passing away.
<... with what?>
That's about all the info I can think of. I'm looking for some possible causes. I really don't want to loose him.
<Or lose... Have you searched, read on WWM re shark health? Bob Fenner>
Thank you.

blue ribbon eel and a bamboo shark, comp...  7/19/09
hi guys,
<Hello,>
I've done a fair bit off research about putting a blue ribbon eel in with my bamboo shark.
<And wisely you decided not to buy the Blue Ribbon Eel, right...? Keeping sharks is difficult enough; keeping Blue Ribbon Eels is virtually impossible unless you have access to a safe, constant supply of suitable marine fish it can eat (not Goldfish or minnows!). The problem is that only very rarely adapt to other types of food, and unlike Morays generally, they do extremely poorly in captivity.
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ribbonmorayeels.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/rhinomuraenafaqs.htm
These are fish best left in the sea where they can catch the small saltwater fish they want to their heart's content. Do bear in mind shrimp can be part of their diet, but not the whole diet; shrimp contain a lot of thiaminase, and over time, this causes problems, so the majority of meals offered to these and indeed all Morays need to be thiaminase-free foods. Do read Marco's excellent review of this topic, here:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_6/volume_6_1/thiaminase.htm
>
I decided to go for it and get a young eel as I can watch it grow, it was feeding and eating on live shrimp at the shop and is eating now but as I put it into the tank the shark started swimming around a lot and jumped out of the tank (witch is the fist time in the 2 months I've had him for) I got him back in straight away and he's doing ok again,
<How odd.>
but... he is still swimming around erratically, so I got the eel back into a 20lt bucket and the shark is Carl
<calm?>
as he's always been!!!!!
<I see.>
so my questions to you guys is, what should I do? and do they go together??
<Apparently not. Obviously, it depends on the size of the tank, and the temperament of your fish, but in this instance, I suspect the Fish Gods are telling you to return the Blue Ribbon Eel back to the shop, if you can. Bob reckons 99% of them die within a month, so I'd save the money and perhaps buy a really nice bottle of French red wine or a couple of fine Omaha steaks; the money would be a lot better spent thus. It'd still be money gone, but at least you'd have some pleasure out of it; money spent on Blue Ribbon Eels won't usually bring any pleasure at all.>
please can you get back to me asap many thank
<Have done. Please, do us the favour of hitting the Shift key at the start of sentences! We're sticklers for capitalisation around here.>
Chris
<Cheers, Neale.>