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Just when you thought it was safe to walk down Main Street, along comes a chillingly beautiful blacktip reef shark ... the kind that's been tearing into swimmers all summer.
The 3-foot-long female is impossibly sleek and graceful as she circles endlessly in her new 14-foot-long, 1,500-gallon saltwater tank at Cool Corals, a tropical fish shop at 800 Main St.
She's from Indonesia, and a voracious meat eater. Beady eyes, powerful fins and a perfectly streamlined body are all part of the package. With a lightning-fast flick of her tail, she changes directions and attacks her lunch – pieces of fresh shrimp, squid and halibut dropped in from above.
"She gets the good food. We eat at Wendy's," says Brad Kretzmeier, owner of Cool Corals.
His shop has been housed inside the Antique Mall of Lafayette since October 1998. The original four tanks have multiplied to 40, all filled with exotic fish, ocean rock, soft coral and water plants. But the new shark tank is the star of the show.
Purchased secondhand in Saginaw, Mich., it is one of the largest privately owned saltwater aquaria in Indiana. It's 5 feet wide and 3 feet deep. When filled with water, sand, rocks and coral, it weighs approximately 20,000 pounds.
"It's one of the few in the United States that is set up as a natural reef," Kretzmeier said of his $30,000 creation.
Neither of the two sharks inside is for sale. The blacktip is more rare and valued at $1,500. The docile, 3-foot-long nurse shark, worth $400, looks like a catfish as it sits on the bottom. Kretzmeier can stroke it without fear of being bitten ... but the blacktip is another story.
"She definitely has a short temper. She's on edge," he says.
Underwater show
The display tank has attracted scores of visitors ever since it began operation just over a week ago. Two chairs sit near its three porthole windows so the curious can savor the never-ending underwater show.
Kretzmeier hopes to set up a "shark cam" video camera so anyone can watch via the Internet at www.coolcorals.com.
"The fact that they are predators is fascinating," says saltwater devotee Tony Weiss, who works two blocks away at SecurityProfiling, Inc., 1005 Main St. He once owned a nurse shark.
"They represent that part of nature which is kind of seen in dual terms -- fearful and bad, but magnificent and a very important part of the whole scene," he says. "If it weren't for these predators, nature wouldn't work as efficiently as it does. If there were no sharks, the ocean would be a mess. They keep it healthy and balanced."
The 120-gallon saltwater tank in his office will soon be replaced by a 450-gallon unit. Cool Corals' mini ocean is "not just massive, it is so well done," Weiss says.
"They know what they are doing, and they take enjoyment in doing it well," he says. They do a nice job of bringing people in and educating them. I've learned a lot just from listening."
Lafayette's Cale Reese has been interested in saltwater fish for three years and has a 56-gallon unit at his home.
"I like the aspect of having the total environment," he says. "It's my little slice of the ocean that I can enjoy."
Now he's excited about being able to watch a reef shark in a reef setting.
"It's fascinating to go back and see them," he says. "I think it's really cool that Lafayette can offer something like that. I'm originally from Fort Wayne, and there is nothing of that caliber up there."
Jeff Shearer, owner of the antique mall, has kept tropical fish at his home since the 1970s. He considers the tank a major addition to Lafayette.
"It's more of a teaching utensil, and I expect a lot of class tours," he says. "It's the only blacktip, outside of a public aquarium, in the state."
Often, he says, sharks are confined to small tanks that lack the plants, rocks and synthetic salts needed to re-create ocean conditions.
Bad rep
A recent rash of well-publicized run-ins between sharks and swimmers has intensified public curiosity about the creatures. Sharks as a whole have an undeserved bad reputation, Shearer says. True "killer" sharks -- great whites, bulls, and makos -- tend to live in open oceans where food is relatively scarce.
"Two-thirds of the shark attacks worldwide are blacktip reef sharks," he says. "When you look at one, you definitely have some respect. They aren't man-eaters, but they mistake people for something else. When they bite, they are actually tasting you."
The two sharks will each grow to about 4 1/2 feet in length, and Kretzmeier already is thinking about how to build a larger tank.
At this stage, they eat about about 3 1/2 pounds of fresh fish parts each week. If fed live fish, the blacktip would soon devour the smaller tropical fish in the tank, including beautiful regal angels, yellow tangs and Scot's damsels.
The blacktip is obviously intelligent, Shearer says. It recognizes him and Kretzmeier, and knows that when a crowd of people is standing nearby, it's feeding time. Fish parts are gingerly dropped in, a piece at a time, from a few inches away.
"It's a pretty hyperactive animal," Shearer says. "We may eventually be able to hand-feed her. That's our goal, anyway."
Source: Lafayette Journal & Courier