# Sticky  What is your most regrettable fish purchase?



## JanS

I think we've all done it at one time or another.

For me it was those tiny Bala's, who are now crowding my 125. 
They have outlived their life expectancy, outgrown their maximum size of 14", and I'm too soft hearted to get rid of them to pay for my mistake of getting them.

Anyone else have a similar experience?


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## turtlehead

altum angel, with no tank.. let my friend "borrow" it for his 80g and died..


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## Porkchop

My arowana. It had Killed, but not eaten, all its tank mates after I moved it out of the tank for couple of months and return it back. Had a big tank with one fish for 3+ years.

Oh, and the sucker bit me many time when I was changing water. Kind of glad that it died from natural cause (kind of).


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## Piscesgirl

My clown loaches -- as much as I like them, I'm having great stress trying to provide for the necessity of large gallonage living quarters for them.


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## TWood

A bunch of juvenile Congo Tetras. They grew up to be mostly females with no coloration and bad tempers. Garbage disposal.

TW


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## jcolletteiii

Fresh: Red snake head. They are basically a torpedo shaped stomach with teeth and fins. They are cute when they're small, but they're only small for like 12 minutes!

Salt: I think it was a figure 8 puffer... maybe some other kind. Very interresting fish, and not usually that badly behaved, but he bit the left eye right out of my yellow tang and ate it. The tang lived for a long time after that, but it miffed me everytime i looked in that tank.

-joe


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## thaerin

My frog. I love the him but darn it, he takes up an entire tank to himself =( He's just a big mouth and even bigger stomach. He literally ate the contents of my tank in one night before he got his own home. I wish i could turn the 10 gallon he lives in into a shrimp only place but I can't find it in my heart to get rid of him.


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## fishfry

hatchetfish....they are cool, but even with my tank being covered really well they still found ways out!!


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## Cavan Allen

Bad chocolate gouramies. I should have quarantined them but didn't. They brought something along with them that wiped out almost everything in the tank, including several generations of killies. Worst impulse buy ever!


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## Simpte 27

Thats easy.........my Chinese Algae Eater.


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## shadow

thats easy some really nice kribs (which i've always liked till then) they promptly breed and took over half the tank for themselves forcing all the other fish up one end,


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## MatPat

First: Siamese Algae Eaters! By far the most over rated algae eater in planted tanks. Once they get a taste for fish food (other than algae) they are worthless and they are very difficult to catch. 

Second: Cardinal Tetras from a LFS. The fish had an initial mortality rate of 50% in the first week. Thought it was the GH of 10 that may have contributed to their demise. Moved the remaining 6 to an RO tank (GHand KH of 3 degrees) and returned the dead fish for 6 more and those died within a few days, taking 3 more with them. While the store has a decent guarantee, it does not apply to replacement fish. Now I have 3 Cardinal Tetras that ended up costing me $12 each!!! I like Cardinals, but not that much


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## Raul-7

Definately the two CAE's I bought last year. They barely touched the algae, instead they went after my Gouramis!


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## vancat

Besides the pencilfish? haha
That would be the beautiful group of Praecox that died slow, ugly deaths, one by one.


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## TWood

MatPat said:


> Second: Cardinal Tetras from a LFS. The fish had an initial mortality rate of 50% in the first week.


Was that about three years ago or so? There was a bug going around the wholesalers at the time, so of course I decided to stock my 90 gallon and bought a bag of 50. All dead in a week. The LFS went through several -hundred- before stopping. Out of the 100 or so I bought, I now have about ten.

TW


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## FMZ

I regret getting Clown Loaches now. Feels like selling them, but I paid 7+ for each and I have six. They're in my 75G Planted tank. I hate it when they tear up my plants. 
SAE, yes they're overrated and they don't eat hair algae, but my 3 trio is always grazing at algae so I am satisfied with them. Florida FLagfish is the fish I would recommend getting for hair algae.

Second is Puffer (T. Turgdvis) who lives in a 30 Gallon by himself. Its a planted tank so I am suffering from Brown Algae.


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## MatPat

TWood said:


> Was that about three years ago or so? There was a bug going around the wholesalers at the time, so of course I decided to stock my 90 gallon and bought a bag of 50. All dead in a week. The LFS went through several -hundred- before stopping. Out of the 100 or so I bought, I now have about ten.
> 
> TW


No, it was in January of this year. Very disheartening. I love the look of these fish mixed with German Blue Rams. Their colors go so well together.


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## thaerin

You want a story of really bad fish epidemic? I work for a chain of LFS (not mentioning name, don't want to be giving the store bad press and get caught! I like my job). 
Anyway, one of our sister stores had a Disaster of apocalyptic proportions. They had just gotten their weekly order of fish in, about $1000 just for the order, not including what they already had. Something must have come in on the shipment. Their entire stock of fish, in every tank along wall, died within a few days I think it was. 
Not sure what they said it was, but my manager said they might have to rip out the entire fish system (and I mean to the last water hose, airstone and all, and this thing takes up the entire wall of the store) and replace it. How's that for a regrettable fish purchase?


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## Error

My stupidest purchase wasn't necessarily a dumb one or an uneducated one, but it certainly resulted in the loss of a lot of money.

I bought five more rhombo barbs a couple weeks ago to supplement my existing school, which I thought needed some fattening. The ich they brough with them killed EVERYTHING IN THE TANK except for two Microrasbora kubotai (what the heck am I going to do with TWO?) and my trio of Betta imbellis.

I'm still kind of livid over the whole mess, I like to think of myself as a fishkeeper who should have known better


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## shadow

yeah i feel for you error i've made that same mistake with the same dire results, they way i look at it as long as you learn from it, it's a valuable(albiet costly) lesson, and everybody has made them.


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## Aaron

QUARANTINE GUYS!!! Do it in a 5 gallon bucket if you have to! 

Thaerin, 
ripping out and replacing an entire battery of tanks isn't necessary, all they would need to do is sterilize everything with alcohol and bleach.

As for my most regrettable purchase, I don't really have any. I will however never buy Chocolate gouramis ever again as I have killed too many.


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## arellanon

I bought some plecos and cichlids and had to return them. The plecos were getting rather large and I didn't have room for a cichlid tank. I also had to return my monos. My monos were really nice; my mono sebae was beutiful in particular. I kept getting compliments while in the store I traded with. I hope they're in a better home now. I just don't have room for a large brackish water tank.


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## arellanon

MatPat said:


> First: Siamese Algae Eaters! By far the most over rated algae eater in planted tanks. Once they get a taste for fish food (other than algae) they are worthless and they are very difficult to catch.
> 
> Second: Cardinal Tetras from a LFS. The fish had an initial mortality rate of 50% in the first week. Thought it was the GH of 10 that may have contributed to their demise. Moved the remaining 6 to an RO tank (GHand KH of 3 degrees) and returned the dead fish for 6 more and those died within a few days, taking 3 more with them. While the store has a decent guarantee, it does not apply to replacement fish. Now I have 3 Cardinal Tetras that ended up costing me $12 each!!! I like Cardinals, but not that much


Yes, SAE's suck! Mine is getting big and lazy; my ottos easily outgraze the guy/gal! All he does is harass my ottos while THEY try to eat algae! Doubt I'll ever buy one again; I'll just stick with a crew of ottos, shrimp, and snails.


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## JanS

Aaron said:


> QUARANTINE GUYS!!! Do it in a 5 gallon bucket if you have to!


I whole heartedly agree. It only takes one little "bug" in a newly introduced fish to wipe out your entire tank of established (and sometimes priceless) fish to drive home the message.
A Q-tank doesn't have to be elaborate, or cost a lot, but it sure saves a bunch of headaches down the road. All you need is a 5 or 10 gallon tank with a sponge filter and heater to get by.


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## TWood

And once you have a new fish in a Q tank, then what? Watching it for a week may not reveal anything. How do you treat the unknown? 

It's arguable that the trip through the Q tank introduces more stress than it's worth. It's also arguable that the new fish was the catalyst that set off a latent infection in the show tank that was just waiting for a stress factor. It's also arguable that the vast majority don't use Q tanks and we are only hearing of the few occassions when there was a problem.

It's also arguable that I'm completely wrong.

TW


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## Laith

Not to argue or anything :razz: , but one week is not enough.

I quarantine for 4 weeks.


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## Porkchop

Aaron said:


> As for my most regrettable purchase, I don't really have any. I will however never buy Chocolate gouramis ever again as I have killed too many.


Sorry to go off topic, but I have only seen Chocolate Gourami in LFS of NYC ONCE in my 20+ year here! I bought all three of them, and they are doing fine for about year now.

Have anyone seen them in your LFS:?:


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## vancat

Anybody who has infected their entire main tank because they didn't feel like quarantining, KNOWS it's a worthwhile effort.

If you don't give a hoot, than go right ahead & dump 'em in there.


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## iris600

Question, will ottos eat hair algae?


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## Error

I don't quarantine for the following reasons:

1. Fish who aren't showing any external signs of disease generally are safe.
2. I don't have the room for another tank.
3. Quarantining does not always reveal disease. It's the transfer between tanks (i.e., the stress of catching the fish) that does it the best.

I should probably start doing it, though. Especially after this mess.


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## glenhead

Iris600 -

No, Otos will not eat hair algae. Had a bunch in my 55, and (over time) eradicated it by the "scorched earth" method - remove everything that it was growing on. Time consuming, painful, and a hassle, but effective!


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## TWood

Yeah, well... There are many things that we 'should' and 'shouldn't' do, but who wants to live in fear?

"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everybody drops to zero." - Tyler Durden


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## reilly

Heres an interesting Q tank schedule... has anyone tried it?

- new fish in Q tank for 2 weeks
- if new fish looks OK add in a fish from your tank for 2 weeks
- if that goes OK you should be fine to put both into your main tank



TWood said:


> And once you have a new fish in a Q tank, then what? Watching it for a week may not reveal anything. How do you treat the unknown?
> 
> It's arguable that the trip through the Q tank introduces more stress than it's worth. It's also arguable that the new fish was the catalyst that set off a latent infection in the show tank that was just waiting for a stress factor. It's also arguable that the vast majority don't use Q tanks and we are only hearing of the few occassions when there was a problem.
> 
> It's also arguable that I'm completely wrong.
> 
> TW


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## figgy

I don't want to be rude, but I ave to ask: How is it that the ich gets so far? I don't quarantine because I feel it's stressful for the fish [and for me...] and I eyeball my fish daily. One spot and the tank gets dosed after I move the shrimp if they're in it. I have had ich but never once lost a fish. Had tanks all my life and currently have 7 going. Maybe I'm just on a very long lucky streak???

:-s

Figgy


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## JanS

TWood said:


> Yeah, well... There are many things that we 'should' and 'shouldn't' do, but who wants to live in fear?


This is why I always try to beat a train at the tracks, or walk into a room full of people with TB.... Who wants to live in fear??? :razz: ;-)


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## ben_manzella

Micky Mouse Platties avoid taking children to the fish store. Just kidding. Well maybe not.


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## Talonstorm

A female gambusia I bought labeled as a female guppy. The little witch terrorized my quarantine tank (had 4 guppies and the 3 resident ones in there) until I figured out what she was. Now I VERY closely inspect the female guppies I buy before allowing the lfs to bag them up and sell them to me.

Tina


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## mlfishman

*worst fish purchase*

Endless Shrimp Special @ Red Lobster....Musta caught something bad....couldnt keep solid food down for 3 days after.....never again


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## Praxx42

JanS said:


> What is your most regrettable fish purchase?


4 lima shovelnose catfish. Wonderful predators, but ate me outta most of my money. Traded for plants.


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## vancat

haha
what'd ya expect -eatin' at Red Lobster.

Mine was the Cod on special at Stop & Shop. It needed some Fluke-Tabs.


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## The_Holy_Bull

My worst fish mistake was also one of my best. It was a wonder full pair of angels that I got from a local fish store when I was 14. The told me that the angels would be fine in a ten gallon tank. Well after a couple months and they were still growing and could hardly move in the 10 I finaly convinced my father to get a 55 gallon tank for the living room so I could put the angels in. but by the time we finaly got the tank and got it set up the angels had been in there tank for 4 and a half months and one died a week before the new tank was ready for them. Felt horible that It was my stupid fault that the poor fish had died due to a horible tank set up. His mate only lived for a month after he died, She just didnt eat harly anything and wasted away. It did teach me alot though. Made me think throug all of my future fish buys, and grow to love and respect them.


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## SnakeIce

Serpae tetras as a first fish in a tank intended for peaceful fish with long fins, Doh. There went that idea on fish I wanted. First and only fish bought without researching first.


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## fish7days

Juvy Tinfoil Barbs when I was a kid. Ended up eating all my plants and overcrowding my 3 ft tank.

André


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## sharks

For me that would have to be my 2 skunk loaches (Botia Morleti). They are terrorizing their tank mates. I will have to take all the plans out at some point to catch the little buggers.


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## MaryPa

A common pleco,he was just a big poop machine. Cichlids because the were either too aggressive or hid all the time.


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## Jason Baliban

I dont know if I regret the purchase as much as the fish may have regretted being purchased.

When I was a young lad I had a 55 gallon freshwater tank. I had no clean up crew for the tank so after a few months of no WC's and over feeding and all the other things that kids dont think about. Well I had so much brown gross algae that I convinced my mom to go to the store with me to buy a sucker fish. We went and found the biggest pleco they had. 

I put him in the tank and went to bed shortly after. I woke up the next morning to find my tank clean as a wistle. But my poor pleco was 4 fins up!!! He ate himself to death.

jB


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## brianclaw

A Crown Tail Betta for my tank. After seeing some nice community set-ups with Bettas in them I thought I'd be able to pull it off as well(I've always wanted a Betta)... Nope. Feisty little bugger refuses to get along with anyone, or anything. He even flares at newly introduced plants... He's residing in his own little planted vase now on a colleagues desk at work(space at home is a little tight for me...).


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## JanS

Brianclaw, once in a while you do get an exceptionally feisty one like that, and other times you can get some pretty easy going ones. I had one little bugger who would take on even big breeding Angelfish and not come out any worse for the wear.


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## cgcaver

Wow... do I have a story to tell here!

1) I plant my tank, and wait patiently for weeks on end for the plants to get to a point where I feel they are "done."

2) I save a large amount of money to populate my tank.

3) I test water religiously and am pleased with the nearly perfect water conditions day in and day out.

4) I proceed to spend about $150 on 92 Neon Tetras for my tank (it was already cycled), and stock my tank. (Wednesday, Aug 10) I orginally wanted an Mbuna tank, but I didn't want the cichlids to tear up my plants too bad; so I figured Neons would look great too.

5) I PICK DEAD NEONS OUTTA MY TANK AT LEAST TWICE A DAY - every day since last Wed.

On average, I have 7 Neons dying every day. However that average is a little misleading. In actuality, I have about 4 dying every day... but on days that I do a water change (I've been having to do a lot lately because of a constant green-water problem, and trying to get my ferts situatued), I have about 8-9 die in total.

Seriously, it's ridiculous. I do a 50% WC, and you'd think I was running a Nazi gas chamber. About half of them float around the surface acting like they're on death's doorstep, but most of them seem to recover. However, 4-5 usually don't. 

No, I don't have any other fauna in the tank that would be killing/eating them. No, they don't have Ich, NTD, misshaped spines, etc. - they look absolutely fine when they die. Yes, their color looks perfectly normal. Yes, they behave perfectly normal, until about 15-30 mins before they die, then they start to break away from the school, kinda float around the tank (usually near the surface), and are bellyup-at-the-bottom-of-my-tank-dead within an hour for sure. Yes, my water params are IDEAL for neon tetras; I test religiously:

gH: 2
kH: 7
pH: usually 7.0 -/+ .2
NH4: 0
NO2: 0
NO3: 5-10
PO4: 1-2
Temp: 75F

The ONLY thing I can think of to blame this on is pH shifts caused by water changes. My tap water is about 8.2, and the CO2'ed water in my tank is about 7.0. However, I don't even think this fully explains it because I was having Neons die at this rate even before I did the first water change.

You know, dropping a little food in the tank and watching the Neons go crazy all over my planted tank was purely breathtaking. I have never "created" something so beautiful. However, I truly despise the little A-holes now. Neon's are the least hardy fish I've ever seen. I haven't kept any since I was a kid, and I won't be keeping any more. If you're considering doing a large school of Neons - you may really wanna reconsider. Im so frustrated I feel like throwing a temper tantrum  

I now have 49 Neons. At this rate, they will all be dead by next Tuesday, Aug 23 - possibly sooner should I have to do a  *GASP* WATER CHANGE  - just 13 days after I spent $150 and stocked them.

Alas, Murphy was an optimist.


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## MaryPa

I quarantine all fish before adding to any of my tanks. Transporting alone causes stress which leads to many disease including ick. In the q tank i have Coppersafe. After 3-4 weeks if all look ok then they will go in the main tanks.Patience!!!!


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## jeff63851

I now regret buying that common pleco from the LFS. I hate fish stores that give you false infomation about fish...


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## raven_wilde

Yes, some LFS you just can't trust to know what they're talking about... I always do research on the net first before I make a fish purchase, scan the forums etc... then I quarantine in a ten gallon for at least a week, sometimes more. Patience is the most important thing I have learned keeping fish... it took me a long time to learn this though, and I'd like to publicly apologize to all fish involved... sorry guys, I just didn't get it.


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## JanS

Well, I'll probably get flogged for this, but I have to add some loaches (botia's) to my list.

The Kuhli's have always been fine, but the addition of the Yo-yo's and Kubotai's (sp?) really disrupted my tanks. I finally caught them all and put them in the 125 with all of the other "bad boy" fish, and my other tank (55 gallon) is back to normal again now.

They are cute and inquisitive, but they also interfered with the schooling of my Rummies, and ate all of the bottom feeder food before things like the Cory's and Bristles could get to it. 
I've even found the Yo-yo's to be a bit aggressive after the lights go out....

I know most people really enjoy them, but I won't be buying anymore of them myself....


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## BryceM

How about 6 zebra danios at the suggestion of my daughter? 2 have died of more or less natural causes. Somehow I still have 5, I think, since they won't stop chasing the rummies around long enough to count them. Does the math make sense to you? If you think SAEs are hard to catch, try these stupid things. They're mostly just a blur. So much for peaceful.


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## treesmcdonald

I hate zebra danios too. Until recently they rated as my most regrettable fish purchase. They are a spastic mass of fish terrorizing energy. But now I have a new regret. I added a red tailed shark (Epalzeorhynchus bicolor) to my tank because the plant book I have said it would eat snails and remove debris from plant leaves. Also, the husband thought it was cool looking. Things went well for the first month when it mostly hid or peacefully went about its business but then it got comfortable and its mean streak surfaced. I knew it could get aggressive towards its own kind and other bottom dwellers but this fish hates all fish equally. It took me 2 hours to catch it in my planted tank. Once, I actually had it in the transport container (which was balanced on my light) and it jumped back into the tank!! It was determined not to relinquish its dictatorship! I gave it to a friend who just recently set up his tank; he likes its spunk and attitude.


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## JanS

treesmcdonald said:


> It took me 2 hours to catch it in my planted tank. Once, I actually had it in the transport container (which was balanced on my light) and it jumped back into the tank!! It was determined not to relinquish its dictatorship! I gave it to a friend who just recently set up his tank; he likes its spunk and attitude.


Oh, that must have brought on some naughty words when it jumped back in the tank....:axe:


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## treesmcdonald

> Oh, that must have brought on some naughty words when it jumped back in the tank....


Yes, many very quiet swear words whispered through clenched teeth so as to not wake the napping baby in the next room.


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## apistaeasy

biggest regret:
live feeder fish from the LFS. brought in a funk and killed off the whole tank...except for the feeders.


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## Hawaiian

Most regrettable purchase was SAE and discus. Discus because I am hooked on them with 20 different varieties and many tanks later 50 to be exact and a pissed off wife. SAE because they get lazy as they grow and prey on my discus. In the garbage they went after 3 hours of trying to catch 10 in different tanks.

Saltwater Regret, a nurse shark that out grew a 300 gallon tank and ate all inhabitants. So back to the ocean he went. Needed a large amount of people to help take him/her back and to feed all the people that helped was a chore in itself.

Now no saltwater as I live in Nebraska now and I lived in Hawaii then. Regret moving here other than the fact that I met my Loving Wife. I hope she reads this. 

Ike


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## goldielovr

I owned an Oscar for half an hour once. All I had at home was a ten gallon tank.


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## goldielovr

Re: the appalling die-off of 4-8 neons a day...Not sure if it'd have been any better, but I think I'd have stopped changing water just to see what happens. 

I mean. They're dying anyway, right?


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## sarahbobarah

TWood said:


> A bunch of juvenile Congo Tetras. They grew up to be mostly females with no coloration and bad tempers. Garbage disposal.
> 
> TW


I had the opposite experience. I got a dozen congos, and 10 of them were male. I had them for a long time, and grew very attached to them. Took me 2 months to make myself find another home for them when they outgrew my tank. 
I cried that day.

So yes, in a way, I'm very sorry I bought them in the first place. .... still miss them....


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## BryceM

Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all...........


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## Ajax

Praxx42 said:


> 4 lima shovelnose catfish. Wonderful predators, but ate me outta most of my money. Traded for plants.


My 2 shovelnose catfish were real aggressive too. I thought a nice 24" flat head catfish that I caught while fishing would make a good tank mate for them & a Bolivian redtail I had. None of them made it through the night! I still remember waking up seeing the tail of my Bolivian red tail hanging out of that flat head's mouth.  I promptly threw him back in the lake!


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## fredyk

I bought about 9 tiger barbs for a 55 gallon. I could not bear watching the smallest one being chased around and around and around. 

Two pet stores would not take them for free. "against store policy"


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## jrvs23

Worst fish buy was freshwater puffers. I ended up hating them. This was before I went planted.


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## mrbelvedere138

My recently deceased blue crawdad (he was dying at Wal-Mart, he only had one claw, was about 2 inches long, and generally looked miserable). He was small, so I figure he'll be fine. Wrong. That guy grew so fast he was molting every week, catching fish, eating amano's, and scarfing plants. He was *my* special little guy though, so I loved him just the same. He waved his claws when I came in the room. Say what you want, he knew me. He also grew to 9 inches head to tail. Then he crawled out of the tank, ended up behind the stand, and when I moved it to look for him, he was crushed and suffered a quick death. I was actually distraught, he was more like a pet and less like a decoration the other fauna were. I called my girlfriend at 11:00 PM and woke her up to tell her the bad news. She was surprised a "tough guy" like me would be crying over his "bug."


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## taekwondodo

a bunch of bloodfin tetras that I got online from an arizona supplier. (I can't say the name or I'd have to kill you  ).

Half of them were dead when they arrived, and within a week I lost over a dozen cardinals and a dozen rummies...and then two adult discus....


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## allen

worst fish buy was a couple of red eye tetras.they destroyed the plants before i had a chance to move them.


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## infrared

*RE: worst fish purchases*

A couple of purchases come to mind that were pretty bad decisions at the time:

2 gold altolamprologus (i think that's the name) compressiceps = really cool fish, really expensive. They got stressed out in too small of a tank I had and died. Even though they were really small and a long 26g tank seemed big enough,they still perished. This was an expensive lesson at $20/each

1 creyfish - I thought it would be cool to have one of these guys in my tank. Little did I know, he could do some real damage with those pincers. He was returned to my LFS shortly after purchase and destroying three of my very nice african cichlids.

2 blue rams - I thought these were nice little fish at the time, and they didn't seem to difficult. I'm not sure what happened with these - I think maybe my heaters really sucked at the time. I lost both of them in less than 1 month. Maybe they already had some sickness when I bought them? If they did, I couldn't tell at the time.

cardinal tetra - I bought a lot of 24 of these one time, then watched as a lot of them died over the next 2 weeks. I think that this may have been a bad batch again with some kind of sickness that I couldn't visibly identify or see.

..Peter


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## banderbe

cgcaver said:


> 4) I proceed to spend about $150 on 92 Neon Tetras for my tank (it was already cycled), and stock my tank. (Wednesday, Aug 10) I orginally wanted an Mbuna tank, but I didn't want the cichlids to tear up my plants too bad; so I figured Neons would look great too.


I think that is your problem. Adding 92 fish all at once to any tank is bound to cause major problems. No bacterial colony can grow fast enough to cope with all the ammonia that will be produced by 92 fish.


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## Raul-7

banderbe said:


> I think that is your problem. Adding 92 fish all at once to any tank is bound to cause major problems. No bacterial colony can grow fast enough to cope with all the ammonia that will be produced by 92 fish.


True, but you have to consider bio-load. For example, 30 Neons produce as much waste as a pair of Kribs or one 5" pleco.


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## HydroBot

I honestly can't think of any regrettable purchases but I have dealt with some problem fish. I remember about 20 years ago a friend gave me a couple tanks as long as I took the fish too. Well it wasn't that many fish so what the hey right? Well I ended up with a 6" albino channel cat and a 4" carpintis which ended up dominating my largest tank very quickly. The albino quickly out grew his 72 inch tank and would gulp down anything that hit the water. The Carpintis and a Very Mature Convict shared that tank with the cat until another friend of my built a backyard pond and asked me if I knew where he could get an albino cat like mine. "Friend", I said, "this is your lucky day". I made a gift of the Channel Cat to my buddy (I know, REGIFTER!). I used to laugh when my friend would complain that every time he would try to stock his pond with Comets they would quickly disappear. That cat got large and fat on a steady diet of catfish feed and comets. The Carpintis that I got in the deal grew to be a very large and beautiful fish (really one of the most beautiful freshies I've ever owned) But sadly he also was eventually passed to another hobbiest with a larger tank.

One night we were havin a crawfish boil at my house. We were havin a few beers while we waited for the pot to boil when one of my buddies picks out a particularly small crawfish out of the bag, "Hey do you think yer fish would eat this" he asked as he nodded towards my 55 gall Zebra Tank. Before I could say anything, PLOP, In goes the crawdad. Well the crawfish somehow made it to the bottom without being ripped to pieces. The Zebras didn't quite know what to make of him, every time they would come in for a sniff he would tuck his tail under and stick his claws up in a defensive pose. Well that crayfish ended up living in that tank for quite some time and proved to be a pretty good janitor. He got large enough not be threatened buy the Zebras and they left him alone. One day I came home and he was gone, just vanished. No sign of that crawfish was ever seen again and to this day I don't have a clue what happened to him.


----------



## Burks

Worst to date would be two male Opaline Gouramis. Don't get me wrong, they are beautiful fish. The problem was both myself and the person helping guessed the one to be a female, the other a male. 

Turns out I have two males and the smaller one is being nipper pretty badly. The larger one is being transported to my dad's tank tomorrow until I get my second tank set up. I'd hate to lose the other one due to being nipped to death or stress....he really is beautiful.


----------



## Newt

An Ancistrus (B-nose pleco) to eat hair algae. It never ate the algae but instead grazes on my sword leaves and rasps so hard it creates holes. I cna't catch it as it is in a heavily planted 75. The good news is that Flourish excel and ghost shrimp got rid of the algae. If i could only catch that dam.........


----------



## Zapins

Haven't really had any regretable fish purchases since i bought ~36 cardinal tetras and 19 of them died from tetra disease. Grr...

But i did have a similar experience with HydroBot. I had a crayfish upstairs and one day it dissapeared... then 3 or 4 months later when i changed the water filter in the basement i found it all dried up on its back. Somehow that little bugger managed to crawl down 2 flights of stairs and avoid the 2 cats, crawl through a tiny hole in the lounge floor to end up in the boiler room downstairs. It was a sad discovery, but amazing non the less. As a tribute to his long journey i kept his exoskeleton. It dried out pretty well so there is no smell anymore  Now i can value him forever haha.


----------



## Sherri W

Mine would be the six emperor tetras for my 20g bought at the LFS advice (tetras are nice little community fish; get six of whichever you like best). Well they are absolutely gorgeous, but they are not “nice”. The dominant male has a nasty little personality, and with all the extra food and exercise, he gets stronger every day. I might as well have just bought him and left the other 5 at the store.


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## slickwillislim

Silver tip tetras. They are still killing eachother months after I bought them I bought a total of nine and have six left because everyonce and a while I will find one floating near the top with out a speck of finnage. I assume its the tetras since they are always nipping eachothers fins. The fish usually dies within a few hours and so far I have lost 2 females and 1 male.


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## abnormalsanon

Three female bettas for my 30gal. One died of dropsy within a month or two of purchase, despite catching it early and trying to treat it. With only two in the tank, they squabble and nip. They also really limit what other fish I can get, which I didn't know when I got them.

One of the two remaining girls developed a tumor-like growth on her side, which did not respond to treatment. She's lived with it for maybe six months now, with no other symptoms and without it getting any larger. Everyone would come over and say, "I think your betta is sick, look at that bump!" But she would swim around happily, like no one told her about the gross thing on her side. All of a sudden the tumor started to grow last week, and now it's worse. Poor girl. She's hanging out at the bottom of the tank more now, despite her cheerful outlook during feeding time. I don't think she has much longer, and I may end up sending her to clove oil heaven soon...


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## anthonysquire

I've had a few.
1. An eel sold to me as a "fresh water murray eel". It eventually died, but not before wiping out my neons and other small tetras I had. I should have known better!
2. A pair of Red Bellied Pacu's that i got when they were about the size of a silver dollar. About 8 months later they were the size of a dinner plates and gave me and my house a bath everytime I did my weekly water change, they were tank busters. I had them in a 75 gal tank, but I ended up giving them to a friend with a larger tank. Talking about fun to catch!

I've learned my lesson. I thoroughly research anything before it goes into my aquarium from now on! LIVE AND LEARN!


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## TS45

Plecostomus, had a good experience with the bearded / algae eating variety, one died, thought I was buying the same variety, ended up being some type of "Alien / Vampire" predator, first killing off the remaining Pleco, then trying to eat other fish, then to add insult to industry, a horrible case of ick.

Recently added to fancy Pleco's, resulting in another horrible case of ick.

No more Pleco's for me.


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## newguy

saw a lot of posts on SAE. are you guys sure you have the true SAE and not one of the pretenders? from my understanding true sae are the best algae eaters and very hardy and peaceful fish.

as for my purchase, it's the 25 + guppies. They all died one by one without reason. the only conclusion is that my current is too strong ( i am using a 100gal rated filter on a 50 gal ).


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## BryceM

newguy said:


> saw a lot of posts on SAE. are you guys sure you have the true SAE and not one of the pretenders? from my understanding true sae are the best algae eaters and very hardy and peaceful fish.
> 
> as for my purchase, it's the 25 + guppies. They all died one by one without reason. the only conclusion is that my current is too strong ( i am using a 100gal rated filter on a 50 gal ).


Yep, true SAE's. Maybe they are the best when small, but even then they aren't all that great. When they get big they're still interesting fish, but no good at eating algae. They do seem to be fairly peaceful, but they're not above picking off something small.


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## RoseHawke

There have been a couple. CAE, dang thing got to be almost 6" long, you could hear pebbles hitting the sides of the tank from across the room as he rooted around, and of course he chased everybody as well. Just about had to tear the tank down (29 gallon) to catch him. Fortunately the LFS was actually happy to get him.

And the usual "I didn't research it" story. Very ill-named IMHO "Paradise" fish. Within _seconds _of being introduced to the 55 they were actively hunting the cherry shrimp. Everybody else in the tank leaves the shrimp alone and I've never seen anybody actually _hunting_ them! I think the Paradise fish actually spent a grand total of about 5 minutes in the tank and were in my possession for a grand total of a couple of hours. I've never taken a fish back to the fish store so fast!


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## rachpreach

my worst purchase was 3 parrot fish. They are beautiful, but they have eaten like 5 of my fish! I finally sold them though


----------



## ADeWilde

Marbled Hatchetfish......slowly disappeared. I would occasionaly find a dried corpse on the floor, think the cats finished up the rest of them :-k . Poor fish, thought they could fly.


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## rachpreach

> Marbled Hatchetfish......slowly disappeared. I would occasionaly find a dried corpse on the floor, think the cats finished up the rest of them . Poor fish, thought they could fly.


Aww thats sad. Those fish are so cool looking. I was thinking about some but I have a canopy over my aquarium so you think they'd still fly out?


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## ADeWilde

rachpreach said:


> Aww thats sad. Those fish are so cool looking. I was thinking about some but I have a canopy over my aquarium so you think they'd still fly out?


 I didn't have a canopy over mine but it was covered except for the filter intake and heater. So they were either able to jmp ut these holes or when I was cleaning and had the hood off. I've heard other people tell similiar stories of them jumping out of the smallest of holes, which is sad because they are cool fish.


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## [email protected]

*dwarf puffer*

I purchased a dwarf puffer a few months back to control the pond snail problem. I did research on this fish with mixed reviews about it being community fish. My snail problem is over, I have not seen a single snail but now I have caught the darn thing stalking :axe: my other fish.


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## rachpreach

yeah i bought one of these at random at walmart a while back and thought it was so cute. I wasnt educated on their water conditions or the temperment of these fish. Once I was, I took him back


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## JanS

rachpreach said:


> I was thinking about some but I have a canopy over my aquarium so you think they'd still fly out?


I've had the same experience as others with them. They seem to find their way out of the tiniest hole, even though the rest of the tank is well covered.
Out of about 4 of them that I've kept, I've found about 4 of them plastered to the floor eventually.... 
As stated, it's too bad because they are really cool fish otherwise.


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## standoyo

I have to say I was at wit's end trying to control some hairy algae in my tank. Being sworn off SAE's I relented and let two in. They got to work immediately and are really doing a great job. Can't see any hair algae now after 4 days in the 120G. Will be standing by the fish trap soon...:mullet: 

Regards

Stan


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## Dewmazz

goldielovr said:


> I owned an Oscar for half an hour once.


I too purchased an Oscar when all I had was a ten gallon tank. However, It's growth gave us a reason to purchase a 29 gallon tank where s/he quietly resides. I think that s/he's gotten as large as his environment will allow, with _some_ swimming space, but I feel bad for him/her. My dad won't let me take it back to the LFS yet, but I feel I must insist that I return him/her soon. Though, If you have a large enough tank, Oscars are arguably the most "pet-like" fish IMO.


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## scitz

I just had 18 brand spanking new Rasbora maculata get eaten by my aquaclear filter the night after they were introduced to the tank. One side of the filter intake strainer had broken and they got sucked up into it. Looked everywhere for the fish the next morning. Got behind the tank a little to try to see if they were hiding out behind the back plants. Nope, all stuck under the grey thing in the AC. 

This was topped by the time I purchased an albino krib pair, and they disappeared 3-4 days later. After a week of no fish in the tank, I purchased a pair of juvy apistogramma cacatuoides, 3x red. About $40 for them. Disappeared after 2 days. 3 months later, after getting lots of cherry shrimp, the female krib made an appearance back in the tank, much to the cherry's horror.

This is a cursed 10g tank. Never did find the bodies of the male krib or the 2 apistos.


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## Script404

Tropheus Duboisi, this was years and years ago when they were just becoming available, my bro worked part time in a tropical fish shop, and the shop would often let us keep fish for a period of time before returning them, it meant we got to keep some quite nice fish we never could have afforded as kids, and I suspect the owners got some interesting information about fish that were new in the trade and still relatively unknown in behaviour etc. 

The most aggresive fish either of us have ever kept I think, they were like Jack the Ripper on Crack nothing was safe, didn't matter what size.
Cool fish to keep though.


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## AlexTal

My mother bought my 55 gallon tank (no plants) a pair of baby 1 inch inverted synodontis. About a month later, the cute cats were about 7 inches long and all my smaller community fish were "missing". Not knowing much about fish at the time, I kind of ignored it and would periodically add some smaller fish because the cats couldn't be to blame because they just hung out in their corners. Very strange fish to keep. I'd clear out all the decorations every so often for a cleaning and the pair would have a huge battle in the middle of the tank. I think they did what they could to try to forget the other was in there. LFS gave me 5 bucks for the pair. I didn't care, just couldn't have them in my tank anymore. They're still there in a huge 300 gallon tank in the store, so I get to see them from time to time. I guess it's pretty rare to find true inverts that grow to be that size, especially the all black variety.

My girlfriend has an oscar. Thing's huge. I've seen him with other fish in his mouth and everything. He's finally the last surviving fish, too big and too territorial to put anything else in. He flares up at me when I go too close to the tank and tries to bite me through the glass. Very entertaining and I think he's trained to do it now because whenever he does it (and he does it all the damned time now) I give him some bloodworms or some food.


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## importracer

Years back, I recieved a nasty shock from an electric catfish....The bastard was only a juvenile at 4inches....I mean this guy was small so he could'nt really "SHOCK" me, right, WRONG....Scenario:55g, bare, just him.....He was at one end, and I was the other....I was scrubbing algea off the glass....All of a sudden I felt jolt of something running through my arms to my shoulder....Obviously it was the catfish....My arm froze for a split second and then was released.....:fish:


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## David W. A.

After starting up the 120 tank fresh with about $150 of mail order plants, new CO2, etc - I thought Silver dollars would be kewl, a whole school of about 8, each about 2 to 3 inches.

Silver Dollars 1
plants nothing - game over. 

I have a before and after picture somewhere that I intend to dig up and post on my website one of these days - the plants were wiped out.


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## Goof

buying neons with my angels.. i guess they were a midnight snack. woke up the next morning for 4 days and each day one was missing


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## MiSo

a school of 7 cardinals. 
i didn't quarantine and ended up losing over $50 worth of fish.
all the cardinals + a few unlucky others.

lesson learned.


----------



## treepimp

sae's definately...Bought 8 through mail order to clear up my bba. I don't even think they tried to taste it. Five died shortly after I got them. I still have 3 takin' up space in my tank.


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## sithspawn

*That was only one*



importracer said:


> Years back, I recieved a nasty shock from an electric catfish....The bastard was only a juvenile at 4inches....I mean this guy was small so he could'nt really "SHOCK" me, right, WRONG....Scenario:55g, bare, just him.....He was at one end, and I was the other....I was scrubbing algea off the glass....All of a sudden I felt jolt of something running through my arms to my shoulder....Obviously it was the catfish....My arm froze for a split second and then was released.....:fish:


This reminds me of this LFS I go to for my equipment. I was explaining to them about my black ghost knifefish in my tank living with all sorts of smal fish and catfish and cories. I got it when it was about an inch long and it was stocked together with neons which were all still alive after a week so I bought it. I explained to them to their amazement that it didn't attack or eat anyone of my other fishes even till it grew to 8" long. And soon the topic turned to the fact that this fish gives out a weak electrical field to hunt, suddenly all the sales people eyes turned to one of the salesman....Then some one said "If you wanna know about eletricity, ask that guy. The idiot stuck his hand in a tank full of electric catfish.....like 50 of them." I'm just trying to imagine what it felt like...........


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## sithspawn

SAEs are crap and terrorist in my tank. They are greedy beyond belief and useless. Enuff said about them.
Black emperor tetras were another pain in the a** fishes for me. They were nice looking but so much of problems taking care of them....They end with diseases easily after a few months and they are the only fish to get they're mouths chopped of by their tankmates, they were running around with their lower jaw missing etc. This is over 3 batches after a few weeks every batch had died. I start with 10 of them and eventually in about a month one after another......they are all dead, but the worse part is having to treat them in a nano, it was expensive since they took turns to have problems....Mind you I have penguin tetras, neons, cardinals, danios etc...none of them get beat up or sick.......or disfigured....losers......


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## cs_gardener

My worst fish was one I didn't actually buy. I bought a 44 gallon corner tank through an ebay auction and they asked if I wanted their 6 fish. Without thinking :doh: I said sure and aquired 5 nice fish and a devil. The devil was a 6" pictus catfish that would eat anything it could fit in its mouth, including 5 of my 10 long finned danio that I moved from a 5 gallon tank to the 44. 

It took me several days to figure out my fish were disappearing as its hard to count the fast swimming danio through plants. Finally I did and I had a horrid time catching the catfish and then it got its barbs stuck in the net (and nearly my hand). Thankfully a local fish store took it, and boy was that thing FAT :shock: from eating my danio. Glad to see the last of that fish, and yes, I am now much more carefull about checking out any fish that I acquire.


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## lailastar

*:axe: The fantastic red devils...............[-X*

:axe: The fantastic red devils............... [-X
:doh: Their name really should have said it all. I bought them to help me with a livebearer issue. Having had mostly peaceful fish before I thought I could handle a little carnage. What I wasn't prepared for? :snakeman:. Fish that attack each other, bite pieces of other fish off-without eating them or killing them even. A 2" fish attacking my 13" pleco. My big fat peaceful pleco. Right back to the lfs. Strangely enough? I was sad to see them go- they were gorgeous fish:violin:.


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## David W. A.

Silver Dollars. Devastated most of the plants in 1 month - no one told me what they ate, how was I supposed to know?


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## fresh_newby

iris600 said:


> Question, will ottos eat hair algae?


no get a bunch of amano shrimp they will eat it
Or rosy barbs...other than that nada


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## fresh_newby

mlfishman said:


> Endless Shrimp Special @ Red Lobster....Musta caught something bad....couldnt keep solid food down for 3 days after.....never again


hahahaha pretty funny. Now THAT is a bad fish purchase! lol

Mine was the cardinal tetras I won on aquabid. He sent them to me and all 15 showed up dead. I feel bad to this day...not for the money, but because the dude didn't bother puting in a heat pack and it was cold so they died.


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## fishtk75

cs_gardener said:


> My worst fish was one I didn't actually buy. I bought a 44 gallon corner tank through an ebay auction and they asked if I wanted their 6 fish. Without thinking :doh: I said sure and aquired 5 nice fish and a devil. The devil was a 6" pictus catfish that would eat anything it could fit in its mouth, including 5 of my 10 long finned danio that I moved from a 5 gallon tank to the 44.
> 
> It took me several days to figure out my fish were disappearing as its hard to count the fast swimming danio through plants. Finally I did and I had a horrid time catching the catfish and then it got its barbs stuck in the net (and nearly my hand). Thankfully a local fish store took it, and boy was that thing FAT :shock: from eating my danio. Glad to see the last of that fish, and yes, I am now much more carefull about checking out any fish that I acquire.


The same problem the pictus catfish eat all my new rainbows.


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## alexuci

*cichlids*

cichlids. 
I'm a beginner and I didnt know what i bought until i notice that these monsters were chasing and nibbling on my goldfish and my guppies and danios resulting in several fatalities. I did a bit a of research and realize that these monsters are called CICHLIDS. I tried to get them out my 100 gal tank but it is impossible because they are very good at hiding in little holes.


----------



## jpmtotoro

*tadpoles*

must have been two tadpoles. you know, the generic ones. "oh cute... tadpoles... maybe they'll turn into cute frogs..."

i have them in a vivarium with some newts and other critters. they turned into decently-sized frogs... and by decently-sized, i mean "able to swallow a firebelly newt." i fed them crickets and bloodworms pretty frequently... but i think one day i forgot or something and i heard this very loud splash while i was watching TV and i darted to the tank just in time to see a firebelly newt tail get slurped up. i felt soooo bad for my little newt (it was a newt tank! i had about 6 or so in there plus some dwarf frogs for entertainment) so i was scared the two big frogs were going to eat everything!!! yeah... they went bye-bye that night...

oh ok... and this other one doesn't count as a "purchase." this was a "gift" from my (now ex) girlfriend. it was a baby red-eared slider turtle! oh yes, terribly cute... but i of course had no interest in a TURTLE. so i had to toss him in my vivarium for a while. he happily ate bloodworms and anything else i put in there. then i noticed one day he was eating my PLANTS. and he was getting big, fast. and i was grumbling the whole time... then one day i heard a loud splash, and i instinctively darted to the aquarium... just in time to see him swallow a yum-yum eel! the eel was probably about 6 inches long, and the silly turtle was only about the circumference of a coke can. poor eel  the turtle is now somewhere in illinois with some nutty pet-lover. it was a cute turtle... but not suitable for a 65 gallon planted vivarium.


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## Grayum

Newt said:


> An Ancistrus (B-nose pleco) to eat hair algae. It never ate the algae but instead grazes on my sword leaves and rasps so hard it creates holes. ....


Every time I hear of someone buying any catfish to use as a "worker" fish, I cringe. Almost ever time they end up living off of fish food, algae chips and fresh vegtables, and not really carring about algae. If you have ever looked in to their natrual enviroment, you'd understand. Any of the plecos coming from the lower amazon (royas etc) pretty much live in murky tannin stained water, devoid of almost everything but logs. Pretty much like throwing them in to a food paradise. Algae is the last thing on their mind


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## slickwillislim

I havent seen an otto eat anything but algae in my tank, same with amano shrimp. Maybe I am lucky and got some hard working fish.


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## MiSo

mine was the rummy noses or the cardinal tetras that i bought.

i bought these fish a week apart. i dont remember exactly which fish was the cause but i didn't quaranteen and ich broke out in the tank. lost about $50 worth of fish.


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## Blacksunshine

My tiger fish. I had bought 3 of them. and altho they are the most awesome FW fish you can imgine. Their requirements at full size are insane. I would be up at nights pondering how I was going to provide them 1-2000 gallons of swimming room in my appartment.
Sadly 2 died shortly after getting them and the other had died a couple months ago. They never got to the size where I needed the upgrade. (luckly) But They would have driven my hobby into an obsession... well more so. 
So altho I was deeply sadded by the last one's death it was also quite a releif. 

Ironically I still want another. But have to force myself to wait untill I buy a house that I can have a large tank built into. Or a heated pool. 
that and they go for about 200 a peice around here because all the stores try and sell them as goliaths when they are really vitattus.


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## yellowfox

my marble angle, bought 2 tiny angles put them out side in a 35 galon tub for the summer . one jumped out .the other got as big as my hand, whin i moved it in to the 55 gal. he wouldn't let me keep any other fish, would heras them till they dided. had him for 5 years.he dided this summer


----------



## Greeblies

ooh, violet (dragon) goby added into a planted tank. What a mess =(


----------



## Kitishane

I have two:

*Chinese Algae Eater (CAE):* The first one I had was great, but died prematurely. I figured since the first one was so awesome, a new one would be too. Lord was I wrong. I ended up having to move him out of his original tank and into a new one because he was terrorizing my poor Betta to death. Shortly after being moved in to the 30g, he took out two blue gourami, and all but obliterated our two bala sharks. We took him to our LFS, and when they asked if we wanted store credit, we told them no thank you, taking him off our hands was more than worth it.

*Fancy Guppies:* I bought these to fill the void in my office tank when my Betta died. However, I have come to realize that I'm not terribly fond of the two I have, and would prefer to see something different in there. 

I know it's been said before, but I've never heard of agression issues in SAE. Often times CAE are labled as SAE, and many people walk away with the wrong fish. CAE tend to loose interest in aglae as they get older, and often become agressive as they grow. Most of the time, it's your chain stores that will happily sell you CAE under the SAE name.


----------



## DLOBREAKS

Greeblies said:


> ooh, violet (dragon) goby added into a planted tank. What a mess =(


Must ask y? They're so cool. .. .

Mine's the three long-finned black skirt tetras i have that constantly fin nip each other :mmph:


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## Greeblies

DLOBREAKS said:


> Must ask y? They're so cool. .. .
> 
> Mine's the three long-finned black skirt tetras i have that constantly fin nip each other :mmph:


Well, it's like this..

1. Mine seems to only be happy in a sandy substrate, any kind of rock and he seems to have problems because he slithers around on the bottom of the tank like a snake, and he "wiggles" his whole body a lot to mark his territory, in the rocks this just tears his belly up.. in the sand it mooks the water up and is heck on my filters.

2. He LOOOOOVES to root, my daughter calls him a "piggy fish" because.. the way they eat is they scoop sand into their mouth.. and sift through it to get the food they want and spit everything else out. Sooooo.. all that work you put into placing your plants is thrown out the window when you wake up the next morning and find them all floating at the top of the tank.

Now.. don't get me wrong, I LOVE that fish, enough so that I bought him his own tank to live in. It's just that.. well, he wasn't a good addition into the 'planted' scene. (read: bull in a china closet)

As far as mannerisms.. he's one of the most entertaining (when he's out) because when he goes to wiggling around the tank his whole body moves, and it really does have some amazing colors and it really is an unusual fish.

However, like I said, just not good for the planted scene =)

He's 11 inches long right now, heres a pic of him when he was 'only' 5 or so. If you look in the back, you can see evidence of his "rooting".. that plant had been properly covered just hours before he exposed its roots to see what it was =)










Back when I him in a sandy community tank.. he burrowed a cave underneath an oddly shaped piece of holey rock.. he'd stay in there, and stick his big head out going "Gloop gloop gloop" at me.. tell me dragon fish wasn't an appropriate name.. sheesh 










Ohyeah, the haze in that picture near the mouth of his cave is him rennovating.. possibly clearing some sand out of the living room for his new big screen?


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## Angie

Id have to say clown loaches. I bought two for 10 dollors each. They got ich right off I treated it, it went away, it come back, I treated it went away, it come back, I treated again they died. Two months or worry and a waste of money and not to mention heartache. I really liked those fish too. Wish I could figure out how to keep them. No room now.

Runner up would be the parrot fish. I like tanks I can enjoy but with them I would sit in front of the the tank saying "No dont bit that fish." " No dont bite my hands." No dont bite the spong" "No dont stop quit." Anyway you get the picture not a very relaxing tank. Gave them away and put goldfish in my 75g.


----------



## p3purr

Skunk Botia. It was in a 10 gallon with Columbian Tetra and one "disappeared" so I replaced it then another "disappeared". A short time later I found one that was still very much alive with everything from the tail fin to the body cavity missing. I put the poor thing out of it's misery and took the Botia back to the LFS in my town. 
I had been told buy the LFS that I got it from that it was a peaceful fish. Learned to do research before I buy.


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## evesorange

Irisdescent shark. No contest. Bought it at a LFS when it was only 3 inches from a salesman who promised it would "not get much bigger" than it was. I still have my shark (several inches later) but will soon have to give it up because of this beast's increasing size!

A lesson in making informed decisions!


----------



## Aussie_hippie_2

Alas, I need to get this one off my chest. My second 10g tank I owned I put 7 count them *7* gouramis and 2 female bettas in it. I was going by the inch per gallon myth. I still have one of those poor gouramis with the original bettas. They live much nicer lives now


----------



## spoof

my worst buy was a beautiful dwarf gourami that gave dropsy to all my other fish.:tear: :angel:


----------



## THHNguyen

12 Green Eye rasboras...they all died in a week. I still don't know why they all died when all of my shrimp and other fish were doing great. Oh well the shrimp had a feast though!:twisted:


----------



## gibmaker

Chinese algae eater that I bought from some ass under the name of siamese algae eater, boy was I surprised.


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## brennewoman

My most regrettable purchase was a tiny oscar, who grew like crazy and proceeded to eat half of every fish in my tank. I named him GMUD (gross, mean, ugly, and disgusting) I hated that fish, but because he was not a good specimen, due probably to inbreeding, with nasty mud colors and bad scale defects. He was the last fish in the tank before I went off to college, and I think my mom flushed him and sold the tank.

My second worst purchase was a group of pretty guppies and mollies and platies. Within the year we had such a population explosion the entire tank crashed! GAH! We ended up buying angelfish just to eat the guppy babies, and giving away guppies and platies till only one male of each was left in the tank. They eventually died, and we weren't sorry to see them go.


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## pitabread

This angelfish my ex-girlfriend picked out. As it grew up, it became extremely aggressive towards my other angel. I eventually sold it.


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## rhinoman

30 cardinal Tetras. All but six died. I iced the six survivors for fear that they might indroduce some pathogen into my 180. I felt terrible doing so. I mean these were the fish that managed to live. Next time I buy Cardinals I'll buy them from Dr's Foster & Smith (two week guarantee).


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## erijnal

rhino, you might want to invest in a quarantine tank. If you had one you wouldn't have had to needlessly kill off the survivors =/


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## brynnhilde

banded loach. Made my zipper loach look like it lost a bar fight there were so many wounds. Lived for 5 days after and died. Gave away that banded loach.


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## eisg

Very interesting thread!

Even though q might be a good idea, it may still not help. I had quarantined 2 Yellow skirts I wanted to add to my existing school, and all was ok and after seven days I introduced them to my tank. I have to say that a blue tetra had gone missing and I had falsly assumed I had flushed him away during a water change.

Anyway, I was gone for a business trip and when I came back the whole tank was infestated with ich and the paramaters were out of the roofs. At the end three Skirts, 2 blue tetras died... and one cory barely survived. The ich had been introduced but may have no broken out if there were not the stress of the bad water. I found the culprit later: the dead blue tetra.

My worst buy... the Skirt tetras, two black and two yellow were my freshwater starter fish. Now wiser and more gallons I have them still and added 2 other in the hopes they would school eventually, but they just don't. Before they had divided the tank by four, now they are sharing it by six. 

They make my tank look and be full... geez! But I won't toss them out either...


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## rhinoman

That's what I'm saying: They were in my 20gal quarantine tank! I didn't dare move them to the 180. So I iced them rather tham risk introducing them to the 180. I was worried the survivors might be carriers of whatever killed the other 24 fish.


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## R1ch13

Red Tailed Black Shark and 2 Albino Rainbow Sharks! Grrr

Got told the Albinos do better in groups.... Later i found out this is only when there young!

So now ive got a really agressive RTBS that attacks everything and 2 Albinos that fight each other Hate it

Richie !


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## imzadi

I have *really* hard water here, and I bought several gold German rams online (read..expensive due to shipping) thinking how pretty they were. I acclimated them slowly, with the drip method over 10 hours, and only lost one in the first 2 days. The others seemed to be doing fine, but gradually, one at a time, they would fade, and stop eating, and die. I tested frantically, trying to figure out what was killing them, but it was just the hardness of the water. I've researched the needs of my fish more carefully since then. My Firemouth Meekis are doing great!


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## meredymae

Aaron said:


> QUARANTINE GUYS!!! Do it in a 5 gallon bucket if you have to!
> 
> Thaerin,
> ripping out and replacing an entire battery of tanks isn't necessary, all they would need to do is sterilize everything with alcohol and bleach.
> 
> As for my most regrettable purchase, I don't really have any. I will however never buy Chocolate gouramis ever again as I have killed too many.


au contraire...

COSTIA are evil buggers that will survive a LOT. There's also a Koi virus that will survive a lot and is ripping through koi shows out of Japan.

MY WORST PURCHASE: I'm conflicted about this, but I have to say my fancy goldfish. I love them because they have personalities and they're fat and cute and waddle in the water, but I hate them because they're messy, HUNGRY, fast-growing, and eaters of plants. I can't keep the nitrates below 30 for very long even though I have a 55 gallon with only 5 goldies. There are 2 huge biowheel filters (rated at 100 gallons each) and a large powerhead in the tank. I hate that they take up so much real estate and that if I don't feed them 3 times a day, they start to tear apart my crypts. It's a love-hate relationship.


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## meredymae

banderbe said:


> I think that is your problem. Adding 92 fish all at once to any tank is bound to cause major problems. No bacterial colony can grow fast enough to cope with all the ammonia that will be produced by 92 fish.


I have to passionately agree, but to add: switching the ph from 7 to half-way to 8 is still a huge leap, and little fish, especially tetras, are pretty sensitive to that.

Also, 50% water changes may be good for plants, but not for fish, especially new ones that are being stressed from ph, bioload, etc.


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## adrielme

Dwarf gouramis. They would dig up my HC and rotala for their nests, I finally got tired of destroying their nests and replanting and got rid of them.


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## rhinoman

My Dwarf neon blue is a bully. I got permission to put him in the tank at work. My wife was thrilled (as he eats the Angelfish fry) my son said NO. So there he sits: in HIS 180 terrorizing the Angels.


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## sasa

a Shrimp that was in the bag when I bought some Ottos to add to my planted tank.

Now, I have a tank full of Camallanus worms!. I'm treating with levamisole, antibacterial, big water changes in a middle planted tank! My poor angels are having a hard time passing the dead worms, but at least no deads so far.


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## MTechnik

2 turquoise severums. I loved them. After about 9 months they decided they like plants. A LOT. To the tune of a head of Romaine lettuce a week.


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## fishtastico

You got an hour? 

I've had some regrettable purchases for a variety of reasons.

_"Because I didn't know any better" _: A pair of wild caught Apistogramma sp. "algodón" purchased as a birthday present to myself that I put into a planted community tank. (slaps forehead). These were beautiful, beautiful fish that really needed a stable environment (RO water anyone?) and not some neewb's plant tank experimental chemical rollercoaster. They survived about a month until I started to have pH problems in that tank (the pH would go up and down like a roller coaster - I wasn't adding ferts, not enough light, and not enough C02 and my water was pH neutral but not well buffered.. what a mess!). This was 3 years ago. I've since learned my lesson.

and..

_"Because they breed like roaches": _Kribensis. I love.. LOVE West African cichlids. I had 2 sets of westies (p. pulcher and p. signatus) that had multiple batches of babies in my (previous) plant tank and BOY do they ever trash the place, use up the oxygen, and tax the bioload!! Trying to get the parents OUT of a lushly planted tank tends to destroy the aquascape too. I just got rid of the last dozen offspring of the regular kribs.


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## APCRandall

i didnt buy it. somebody gave me there 10g tank with a chinese algae eater in it.. he was big and mean.


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## bradac56

I bought six SAE's, I broke them up between three tanks (3, 2, 1)
and ended up dumping them into my five gallon emergency tank
because they are so spastic that they stress smaller fish.

And to top that off they no longer eat algae because of my feeding
them crushed flake food in my community tank.


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## Homer_Simpson

*Re: What is your most regrettable fish pseurchase?*








Elephant Nose: Highly intelligent(some suggest that it is possibly as intelligent as the dolphin) and real cute but was too sensitive even for my highly cycled tank. He was expensive and died within a week.

Giant Danio: He has become the tank bully in my 55 gallon tank and takes turns bullying and chasing around different fish. One day it is the BlackSkirt Tetras, the next day it is the glass catfish, and the next day it is the male Kribensis, who he has managed to pin and restrict to one corner of the tank. The only one he seems to fear is my Siamese Algae Eater and I think that is because the SAE is considerably bigger than the giant danio. I have had that danio for over 7 years now. A day doesn't go by where I don't fight the temptation to flush that Giant Danio down the toilet, lol.


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## Emily6

2 chocolate gouramis- saw them at an lps a week ago and fell for the "wow! never seen those before!" impulse. Then I read about them online and felt horrible about dooming the two in my tank, figuring they were as easy as other gouramis.

The worst was that they got my hopes up by living for a couple days before croaking.

Giant Danios are a close second- they look cute in the store but are pretty fierce and long-lived once home. They got big and surly. I wasn't too upset when I lost my last one after 3 years during a long-distance move.


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## Winkyee

16" S. rhombeus piranha, It chewed and stired my tank to hell in a short time and ate everything.
Worse yet, I traded a perfect 10.5" diamond rhombeus plus 300 bucks US for this guy...


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## Homer_Simpson

Sorry, forgot to mention the Severum Cichlid.

When I first set out to populate my 20 gallon tank, I saw this tiny baby fish. Not knowing anything about fish at the time, I purchased it to include as an inhabitant in a community tank that I was going to set up. The fish was smart. I could even feed it with my finger. Little did I know that it would grow into a monster. As I helplessly watched, this thing grow bigger by the day and it was so hardy that even a a bunch of missed water changes did not kill it. It was beginning to get too huge for the tank and sometimes it would creep me out. Like when I was in my bedroom I could see it literally staring at me like I was fish food. Many people who saw it thought it was a giant pirannah It got so huge for my 20 gallon, that I could not put any other fish in the tank. Finally, I gave it away to a woman with a 110 gallon tank. I felt that this would give it more room to swim around and continue to grow and giving it away to a good home allowed me to re-populate my aquarium with various smaller fish. 

Moral of The Story: Never ever buy a Severum Cichlid unless you have at least a 59 gallon tank and don't plan on keeping many fish and smaller fish.


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## bigtroutz

*Re: What is your most regrettable fish pseurchase?*



Homer_Simpson said:


> Elephant Nose: Highly intelligent(some suggest that it is possibly as intelligent as the dolphin) and real cute but was too sensitive even for my highly cycled tank. He was expensive and died within a week.
> 
> Giant Danio: He has become the tank bully in my 55 gallon tank and takes turns bullying and chasing around different fish. One day it is the BlackSkirt Tetras, the next day it is the glass catfish, and the next day it is the male Kribensis, who he has managed to pin and restrict to one corner of the tank. The only one he seems to fear is my Siamese Algae Eater and I think that is because the SAE is considerably bigger than the giant danio. I have had that danio for over 7 years now. A day doesn't go by where I don't fight the temptation to flush that Giant Danio down the toilet, lol.


I got tired of the giant danio's bullying & chasing pretty fast some time after I got it free from someone. I crushed it with a rock yielding great satisfaction. Live and learn.


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## Adragontattoo

sharks said:


> For me that would have to be my 2 skunk loaches (Botia Morleti). They are terrorizing their tank mates. I will have to take all the plans out at some point to catch the little buggers.


They shouldnt be, they should be chasing each other. My single morleti has his days where he schools with the rainbows and then also he has his days where he tries to catch the rainbows after he gets done trying to aggrivate the synos. When I had 2 of them, they ONLY chased each other and figured out how to get into the Canister filters I have.



importracer said:


> Years back, I recieved a nasty shock from an electric catfish....The bastard was only a juvenile at 4inches....I mean this guy was small so he could'nt really "SHOCK" me, right, WRONG....Scenario:55g, bare, just him.....He was at one end, and I was the other....I was scrubbing algea off the glass....All of a sudden I felt jolt of something running through my arms to my shoulder....Obviously it was the catfish....My arm froze for a split second and then was released.....:fish:


Got mine free from a LFS that couldnt get anyone to take him. Mine did the same thing to me, but ended up trying to sleep on the heater and had a mouth to tail burn that killed him.

My regrets:

The evident crossbreed Plec I had that managed at 4-6" to push an 18" Common Red Snakehead out of the tank, or after the Snakehead left, tried to take over the ENTIRE bottom of the tank and would beat the crap out of any other bottom dwellers except the Synodontis Ocifeller that would fight back.


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## enzo

Blue tetra. All it does is chase all the other fish around


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## bhaladog

A channel cat from a LFS for my mixed CA cichlid 75g when I was young and dumb. He was pretty cool until about the 15 inches point--that's when I released him in the Wabash. He swam away looking happy.


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## JJJohnson

8 neon Tetras that the Tiger Barbs chased all over the tank. Back to the fish store they went...


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## Dracolique

Well, it wasnt a purchase... but still very regrettable: 

A few months ago on craigslist I saw a local angelfish breeder giving away 1,500 free juvenile black and white marbled angelfish because they had some sort of mystery illness and their fins were becoming ragged, so they werent fit for selling to the LFS's in the area.

I went to the guys house, took one look and thought I knew what was going on... it looked to me like Ich + fin-rot... and I have easily dealt with those things before, so I figured I could bring these angels back from "the dead". I thought perhaps the breeder was just an idiot that didnt know how to treat common diseases.

I took the fish home, put them in my 55-gallon "quarantine buckets" (5 of them), raised the temp to 90 degrees farenheit, did a Praziquantel bath right at the start, then started dosing for funguses and Ich.

2 weeks later, and after dozens of treatments and water changes, I had 4 fish left out of 1,500. They are still alive today, and are healthy as far as I can tell, but are horribly scarred and disfigured from whatever that horrible disease was.

I still dont know what it was... but I'll tell you this: It sure as hell wasnt simply Ich or fin-rot.

Maybe that breeder was smarter than I thought


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## BryceM

I've seen genetic mutations in angels that result in quite bizzare fin deformities. I was skeptical at first but I saw it as a recessive trait through more than 3 generations in one line.


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## Out_to_Sea

Puffers. They were TINY, but mean as hell! They (3 of them) single handedly wiped out almost all my fish. I actually had to set up a seperate tank for them until they starved, because they wouldnt eat anything other than my other fish.


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## BigRed27

Out_to_Sea said:


> Puffers. They were TINY, but mean as hell! They (3 of them) single handedly wiped out almost all my fish. I actually had to set up a seperate tank for them until they starved, because they wouldnt eat anything other than my other fish.


How dare you say anything bad about puffers... LOL
I only have one currently and he is in an isolation tank. He was in with cichlids for a couple years until they decided to use him as a rag doll. Then he went to my shrimp / snail tank. He killed every single one of the snails (fine by me) and all but one cherry red shrimp (not fine by me).

He currently resides in a 20 gallon non planted with one otto and 25 ghost shrimp. I had him in my new 53 gallon but I caught him going after my CRS.

I dont regret buying him, I had several at one time but over the years they have passed on. Its just important to know about the fish before you buy. He lived comfortable with cichlids, SAE's, neons, plecos, bumble bee gobies, kuli loaches, zebra danios for several years until the cichlids decided to pick on him.

(PS I know lots of people think cichlids are very territorial and aggressive but I still have 7 of them with SAE's, Pleco, Neons and kuli loaches all living in harmony.)

My regret was buying zebra danios. They were supposed to be schooling fish and they didnt really school. They were piggys at feeding time and they got to be porkers.


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## kiwik

silver dollars, looked pretty cute when they were a little under an inch (when i bought them). i put this in a unplanted tank. the first time i bought plants and i put it in with the dollars, they ate the whole thing pretty quickly. after that we just put in plastic plants, and guess what? they chewed at the plastic plants until we took it out. and they're such big eaters, we feed them these pellets that sink after awhile, but they just can't wait and they jump up to the surface and splash the pellets all over the place. the pellets end up landing under the hood, where it starts molding and creating these weird colored spots.


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## BradE

Columbian Blue Tetras (Hyphessobrycon columbianus)

Even with 12 of them in my 55g they still harass the neons and corys. They also are pigs when it's feeding time. I'm surprised the rest of my fish haven't died from starvation.

Anyone want 12 "wonderful" columbians?:mrgreen:


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## thelyzardiam

Id have to say my leopard puffers, I knew they'd eat everything but I had to get them and it was right before I went on vacation and I had dropped about 50 ghost shrimp into the 10 gallon cause I was gunna be gone a week. I came back and the power had gone out. Needless to say, I lost all 3 puffers and almost all 50 shrimp. I haven't smelled anything that bad in a looooong time.. gross.


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## DanikaLea

1)Five blue long finned danios. They are beautiful fish and I loved them, but when my apistos started breading they took over the entire bottom and right half of the tank. That left the other 3rd of the tank to the blue danios, glowlight danios, Brass tetras, pigmy corries, harlequin raspboras, and a pair of German Blue rams. They were all so afraid of the apistos they crowded together in that part of the tank. Needless to say the glowlights and the brass tetras, as well as the apistos made short work of their beautiful long fins. I had to give them to another hobbiest because I was afraid they would get infections from being nipped so much. They are doing fine now. Very hardy fish though, none died despite their ordeal.

2) When I set up my 1st tank I was convinced by someone at my LFS that a Knight Goby (beautiful fish!) would be fine in a community tank. Yeah well, it would have been if the water had been brackish (which mine wasn't). I didn't know until after it died that it probably wouldn't survive in a normal freshwater tank. I felt really bad about that.

3) Pigmy corries. I started out with six and now I have two. One by one after I had them for about three weeks, they would randomly go off their food and waste away. No other fish in the tank would be sick and there would be no other outward symptoms of illness in them. I would medicate just in case but it never helped. They would just slowly deteriorate, months apart from each other for about the first six months. Felt really bad but couldn't tell what it was. Just stress from being chased by other fish maybe? The two I have left now are doing really well and none have died for about the last six months.

4) Bumblebee shrimp. I put some in my small 7gal planted tank which had at the time 8 small tetras (neons and some other kind), 2 amano shrimp, 2 pigmy corries, and 1 male betta. The male betta made short work of them. But he doesn't ever mess with the amano shrimp so I didn't realize they would be such appetizing little morsels to him. Once again . . .I felt really bad.


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## skinns

When I was 18 ( i am 34 now) I had several aquariums. I had a fancy for exotic type fishes. The usual Oscars, Pacu, and Goldfish were boring to me. So what did I do, I bought a Channel Catfish, a freshwater eel and a Alligator Gar that was 12inches in length and placed in my 30g long. Feeding her a dozen feeder fish a week was more than I wanted to do. I skipped a week and paid for it. She ended up attacking a freshwater eel, which caused a massive explosion in the tank that involved a catfish as well. Eventually the catfish was bitten on the tail by the eel and in return the the catfish's spine fin was impaled into the eels head. The eel eventually died after having a swollen head for about week. 

I eventually I sold all my tanks and didn't revisit the hobby until I found this website by random a couple of years ago. Now I am a avid hobbyist of the planted aquariums.


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## runwithit

This may have been my worst purchase ever. About 3 years ago I was searching a tiny local fish store and noticed what I thought was an afra... so I snatched him up. He turned out to be alot larger than your average afra and actually was identified as a rather new species that kept being renamed (Pseudo pulpican). Here he is in all his glory...








He was nice looking and all, but terrorized my 90gallon and had all of my larger african cichlids running for their lives. 6 months later, when he was even larger... I moved him to his own 40 breeder. Nothing else... he would even kill my bristlenose plecos. Live and learn I guess...


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## Chuppy

My biggest regret would be... hmm i dunt know im not into this hobby long enough to know what i regret of.. OH YES! my Grass guppy in my tetra tank... thought i had a couple to stand out in the tank.. theuir fins were all screwed up..!(not my other inhabitants but the water param. itself)


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## kiwik

fishtastico said:


> Trying to get the parents OUT of a lushly planted tank tends to destroy the aquascape too. I just got rid of the last dozen offspring of the regular kribs.


maybe diy water bottle fish trap next time?



mrbelvedere138 said:


> I was actually distraught, he was more like a pet and less like a decoration the other fauna were. I called my girlfriend at 11:00 PM and woke her up to tell her the bad news. She was surprised a "tough guy" like me would be crying over his "bug."


i caught those in a lake at modesto in a camp ground before. really fast swimmers, but all you do is slowly put a bucket behind it and then scare it. AHAH



guaiac_boy said:


> How about 6 zebra danios at the suggestion of my daughter? 2 have died of more or less natural causes. Somehow I still have 5, I think, since they won't stop chasing the rummies around long enough to count them. Does the math make sense to you? If you think SAEs are hard to catch, try these stupid things. They're mostly just a blur. So much for peaceful.


hahaha

i had a panda cory for quite awhile. when i was starting a new aquascape, i got a new sandy substrate. the panda kept uprooting my forground plants. It kept rubbing it's tail on the sand, and it began to show red spots from doing this. a few days and the tail just started to grow a ball of fungus like an untouched piece of fish flake. this was an excuse to get rid of him. i feel very very bad that i dint even try to treat him.....although i think it would end up dying anyway. i still feel very very bad.


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## CraigThor

My worst purchase would have to be the 18 White Cloud Minnows I got. Became expensive feeders for my old Cichla that is at my brothers now.

Craig


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## Error

Mine is definitely the time when I bought a pair of F1 Betta sp. 'Mahachai' from an online dealer. They were both on the floor dead and covered in dog hair the next morning 

KEEP UR TANX COVERED DUD3Z!!!


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## Six

Danio figrati. I like the fish, but they get huge and are annoying to watch. We moved them outside to our tub watergarden and in 10 minutes all but 4 of the 12 had committed suicide. I felt kinda but after they jumped out of a 1/2 filled 55, we gave up the ghost on them.


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## mpe1329

A 2" fish that came with a 55 gal tank I bought about 15 years ago. Turned out to be a psychotic Jack Dempsey. Would not stop growing. Pushed spray bar of canister filter out of tank one night. I caught it after it drained about 10 gallons onto the living room floor, much to my wife's amusement. Killed anything I put in tank. Spent daylight hours on his side behind or under a rock. Finally accepted a Mrs. Jack Dempsey. They spawned. I spent weeks raising fry. Ended up with six 2"ers that I traded into LFS for a $2 can of fish food. God help anyone who bought one of them. Jack then killed Mrs. Dempsey and a few weeks later developed a grotesque golf ball size tumor on his side. Spent months waiting for him to die.


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## Church

adrielme said:


> Dwarf gouramis. They would dig up my HC and rotala for their nests, I finally got tired of destroying their nests and replanting and got rid of them.


I read this thread almost all the way through to the very end, thinking to myself, "Why hasn't anyone mentioned Dwarf Gouramis?" Then I came across the above-quoted post!!

I don't even have to think about the answer to this one... my stupid male Flame Dwarf Gourami absolutely DESTROYED my planted tank!! He wouldn't stop tearing up my plants! Especially the cabomba, which left a needley MESS all throughout the dang tank! And my rotala, which is my favorite plant in the tank! All just so he could make his stupid bubble nest... and he threatened all the peaceful fish, all day long, attempting to demonstrate that this was HIS tank. He was also a wife-beater, constantly harrassing and nipping at the female that I bought to be his companion. He just, quite frankly, didn't deserve to be alive.

I'm not the vengeful type, though, lucky for him, and just simply traded him into my LFS (along with the female, because, I only had her to make the male happy). I will never own another gourami again, for as long as i maintain planted tanks. What a jerk that fish was.


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## jazzlvr123

never buy purple zebra shrimp from aquatic magic, you get wild shrimp that die off in a couple days even in near Perfect tank conditions. (same conditions as all my CRS tanks which are doing great)


----------



## jARDINI

Olive nerites. sure they are great cleaners but they lay eggs everywer i mean EVERYWERE


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## drmarion

3 _little_ gourami type fish that turned out to be the cichlid Red Terrors. As they grew they killed or ate every other fish in the tank, uprooted and destroyed all the _plastic_ plants and now the three of them live in a very overcrowed 55 gallon with 2 convicts and a huge pleco. There are also 2 catfish that hide out in there too.
The pleco I knew could grow, but didn't think he would given the tank size. Wrong! I should have known better. He is also huge.
Miraculously, they all live together pretty well considering the extreme conditions. I setup a rock landscape that they all like which provides hiding places for the smaller fish and the Terrors love moving gravel from one end of the tank to the other.
I have considered giving them away to someone who has the interest and capacity for these large, aggressive fish, but don't have the heart as they seem pretty happy.
I feel guilty about the tank, but put alot of effort into keeping it in good condition.
I have regular pothos plants that I root in the tank water and not only do the plants thrive but I think it is helping the tank.

marion


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## PMD

Church said:


> I read this thread almost all the way through to the very end, thinking to myself, "Why hasn't anyone mentioned Dwarf Gouramis?" Then I came across the above-quoted post!!


This must be only the Dwarf Gouramis. My six inch Opaline Gourami never picks at any of my plants. In fact, I keep him in my 55 gallon planted tank with a large colony of Heterandria formosa and he completely ignores them. For such a large fish, he's extremely peaceful.


----------



## Church

^ Actually, ever since returning the guy to the LFS, I researched it a bit more, and it _does_ seem that it's only the dwarves that destroy planted tanks... a cursory search suggests that people with the larger gouramis don't seem to have problems with them! Of course, that means no gouramis for me, with my little ol' 10 gallon...


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## voytek333

discus - spend a fortune on them and never had luck ...


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## Feral Cat

My regretable fish purchase was with my first tank. I spent weeks setting it up to have cardinal tetras, over a couple of weeks i brought the total up to 60 fish, i did not have one single casualty. After a month i was getting bored with only cardinals in the tank so off i went to the lfs and saw these beautiful little cichlids called red jewels which were a pair, the lfs person said they would be ok with the tetras so off home with the little beauties i went, took the time to settle them in over an hour, then released them, watched for a few minutes to make sure they were ok then went to bed.
Next morning i woke up to 50 half eaten fish flotting on the surface dead of very close to it.

Another regretable purchase is my discus. I brought 6 fish from the lfs out of the same tank as half grown fish, i now have 3 left as one fish the bully has harassed the others to death over the last 6 months. These 6 fish lived in a 200 gallon heavily planted tank, and still the bully searched them out to bully them, and i thought these would be relaxing peaceful fish to watch HA


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## pawslover

I have kept fish for a long time so there have been a few mistakes along the way, generally fish whose behavior wore thin over time making me want to trade them (and never being able to get them traded) or just wait for them to die of natural causes. Zebra danios were too busy for me and spent too much time harassing the other fish. Then there was the blue gourami who lived forever it seemed and was just plain mean. Then like many people have posted, I have bought fish without doing the proper homework only to find out when I get them home that they will get WAY bigger then the signs at store said or require very specific conditions. Now I don't buy fish unless I am familiar with the species, or at the very least the family of fish. It's hard sometimes at auctions to juggle what you know about the fish and what looks so appealing in the bag  Right now I have a loach that was labeled a kuhlii. I always had good luck with the kuhlii loaches in the past. I knew this one wasn't one, but I thought I'd give him a home. Now I'd like to find him another one. He would fall into the just plain mean category. Maybe he would be happier with more of his own kind, but I haven't seen anymore like him and don't know that I'd risk it.


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## rich_one

mine would be two managuenses... aka, Jaguar Cichlids. First, they destroyed every single plastic plant I tried to keep in the tank (which, of course, I did not realize they would do at the time... this was pre-internet... lol...), then they proceeded to fight each other to the death. Once one finally killed the other, the thing would literally start attacking the glass of the tank as people walked passed, trying to get to the person!

it was time to go... back to the LFS he went... sheesh... anger management?


----------



## Batdisciple

biggest regret is starting a african cichlid tank, so over rated so boring. i guess i just missed to much the ecosytem i had before like, shrimp, fish, snails, and frogs. africans you cant have any of that now i have a bunch of useless rocks im trying to figure out how to apply them into my new planted tank. hatcher fish, they died easily. african clawed frogs, they ate my beloved blue rams, and blue rams they would have a weeks life span. my water was always fine. oh well im goin to do things the right way this time.


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## dekstr

Eating cooked fish in the kitchen in front of my fish tank.


----------



## Paul Munro

I actually regret bying nearly ALL my fish for one reason or another!!!

Tetras: (Black neon and Cardinals) boring, boring, boring, they don't do anything!

Platies: Fantastic fish, great personalities, but LIVE FOREVER! And don't fit in with what I am trying to achieve so have their own tank now!

Neon tetra: All died 72 hrs. (Suspected 'neon tetra disease')

Swordtails: Ich, 100% fatality in tank (14 fish).

Ottos: Fantastic but they eat algae so quick that they go hungry very easily.

Zebra danios: Maniac fish, always a blur > bin.

I've never tried any rasbora though, maybe next time


----------



## Tex Gal

I bought 12 feeder ghost shrimp at the LFS. In my community tank, I had some angels and I thought they might enjoy eating one every now and then. My 65g tank was heavily planted. Before I knew it my smaller fish began to disappear. My angels weren't as hungry as I thought because some of the shrimp had grown to be 3-4 inches! Turns out they were "fishing" at night. A few very good friends and I began trying to catch those invisible streaking creatures. We tore up the whole tank and caught many many more than 12 of all sizes before it was all over!!


----------



## toxic69

a 9 inch lion fish he was the best looking fish i have ever seen but he had some kind of fungus i wanted to save him so bad that i medicated the tank and that killed all the coral and live rock and he still died


----------



## dekstr

Getting one of almost every species of fish at Petsmart when I was 10 years old.  
Obviously that didn't work out too well. With the zebra danio chasing the neon until it had no tail fin left, the hatchetfish gasping for air in the back corner, the lone algae-eating pleco hiding in a skull cave, the angelfish with severe fin rot, the swordtail without a tail.


----------



## Jessie

My first aquarium experience ever, when I was about 7 or 9 was from a hand-me-down ~1 gallon Pyramid tank with just an airpump and no ventilation from my brother. He took me to PetsMart and we bought:

2 neon tetra (Pete and Repeat)
3 painted glass fish
1 angel fish
1 cory
1 pleco
2 swordtails
4 guppies
and an African dwarf frog.

That is one big regret, also known as fish-death-soup. However, that one little cory ended up living for 5 more years fat and happy.


----------



## zuker

My clown loach. With no visable signs of Ich in the store, I brought it home and it hit the tank like a wildfire! Ultimately, I would lose 20 of my 25 Cardinal Tetras. Of course, the Loach survived. 

Another fish I would avoid, Penguin fish. I had to remove mine, as they became violent towards other tank mates.


----------



## mikenas102

I regret purchasing SAE's online. It's not the fish I regret, it's the nearly $40 in shipping they hit you for that you don't get to see when checking out.


----------



## Dryn

I had this 29 gallon tank that I bought with paper route money. I spent all of it on that tank. I had four cory's, four white clouds, two hatchetfish, one butterflyfish, one pleco, three SAE, and two gorgeous angelfish. I sold my angels to my LFS for twenty-five dollars a-piece. I was shocked! (He took them to a fish show and won second-place). I was only like twelve. I saw these "diamond-tipped tiger barbs" in a "in-the-back" tank and gave him the fifty dollars for four of them. I took them home and they killed all of the fish in my tank within hours! Not just ate them, but litterally shredded them to pieces. I'll never forget the sight of all those little fish body parts floating around my tank. I took the barbs back to the fish store and bought some phantom tetras and went on with my tramatized little life. I never did find those tiger barbs anywhere else. They were good-looking with thier neon-blue tips on thier scales.


----------



## florafan

Neon tetras! I bought nine thinking, okay, these are delicate by reputation, maybe I'll have 5 or 6 from the batch. What do you know, all of them died within 5 days of purchase.


----------



## dawntwister

Church said:


> ^ Actually, ever since returning the guy to the LFS, I researched it a bit more, and it _does_ seem that it's only the dwarves that destroy planted tanks... a cursory search suggests that people with the larger gouramis don't seem to have problems with them! Of course, that means no gouramis for me, with my little ol' 10 gallon...


I had a dwarf gouramy in my tank with moss and java fern. He never ate the plants.

Another I heard that ate plants, from a friend, is a male betta. Yet my bettas have never eaten the plants.


----------



## dawntwister

vancat said:


> Anybody who has infected their entire main tank because they didn't feel like quarantining, KNOWS it's a worthwhile effort.
> 
> If you don't give a hoot, than go right ahead & dump 'em in there.


homer_simpson says an uv sterilizer can be used instead of quarantining.


----------



## erijnal

dawntwister said:


> homer_simpson says an uv sterilizer can be used instead of quarantining.


Unless the UV sterilizer runs the actual fish through its coils, I seriously doubt the truthfulness behind that. It's almost like saying if there is an air-conditioning system in your house that zaps any air going through it, no one in the house will ever get sick from air-borne illnesses.


----------



## Diana K

Columbian Cats. Before I knew about the internet I had one book that just listed them, but did not say anything about them. Wal Mart sign said they got to 6" and 'add a little salt to the water'
I ended up putting them in a 46 gallon bowfront (they outgrew the 15 gallon Q-tank before they were ready to leave Qarantine) and they doubled in size in just a few months. (I had learned they were brackish fish, and kept them that way) Unfortunately (or fortunately) they died when the water company did something to the water, and the water change killed them.
I would not have been able to keep them... over a foot long and full marine conditions as adults...

Jewel Cichlids. "Rather peaceful, for a Cichlid" the salesman says. Well, maybe to some these are "peaceful". They are the only fish that has attacked me when I do a water change. They raised 2 litters of fry, and the last survivors reached 4+ inches of attitude when I took them to the store. I got plenty of store credit for them, so I guess it was not all bad.


----------



## boet

Although I love swordtails - they are my most regrettable purchase. I had read that in a 12 gallon with 3 females they would be fine. Well one turned into a bully and harassed just one other of the trio. The third began to pitch in with harassing the one and it was painful to watch. Also, the picked on Swordtail had babies once. I was able to save one baby and then when my neighbor said she wanted livebearers for one of her 125 gallons off they went. Months later two of the three are flourishing in my neighbors tank- the bully died and the baby turned into a male 

My next regret is one Bronchis Splendens Green Cory. I did not know she would get so large and my plans to get more went out the window for my 29 gallon planted. I had pygmy cories but that was not quite the same for buddies of her own.... She ended up dying after a transfer when moving my tank from one wall to another - I think from stress. I was so sorry to have put her through what I did.


----------



## orlando

My Koi, they have all been eaten buy large birds..


----------



## budd

orlando said:


> My Koi, they have all been eaten buy large birds..


wow this happened to my 7th grade english teacher
he lost like half his population from the bird and finally put a net thing over then pond before the fish got them all


----------



## budd

oh oh oh oh
i was like 11 or 12 and i went to a fish swap thing and well i bought 5 angels that looked awsome well 
the tank they were in (3 gallon) made them look huge well let's just say they died after a week from a tiny tank


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## lauraleellbp

Chinese algae eater. Did eat algae, but bullied everything in my 46gal to death (literally in many cases) and got butt-ugly by the time he was 6"! I finally was so mad at him he faced "capital punishment" and went into the septic tank via the toilet (I was young ).


----------



## Danielle

When I was in highschool our biology class had a couple of small green sunfish and a small mouth bass that were that someone had caught at the local golf course. 

They needed someone to keep them temporarily. I had a 55g full of beautiful african cichlids (each 3-4" long) and the local fish were pretty and about the same size as the cichlids so I figured I'd volunteer.

Within two weeks every single cichlid had been eaten. 

I regret that alot, I loved my cichlids... but it was kind of cool too because the local fish were actually quite pretty, especially the sunfish. I talked the teacher into letting me have them permanently and rescaped with local found driftwood and plants. I added another small local fish, very similar to a perch and fed them all minnows etc. They actually thrived and grew and then I felt bad keeping them so contained and released them back into the wild.

Didn't buy anymore africans though.... turned it into a community tank instead.


----------



## BryceM

Danielle said:


> ... and released them back into the wild...


Oh, this is such a bad idea. I know in this case they were probably native species, but still, who knows what sort of non-native disease or parasites you could have introduced into the local environment.


----------



## Danielle

guaiac_boy said:


> Oh, this is such a bad idea. I know in this case they were probably native species, but still, who knows what sort of non-native disease or parasites you could have introduced into the local environment.


Well.. in this case they went back into the small golf course pond they came out of so if they did... it was quite contained at least. But all my fish were always extremely healthy and never had a single breakout of disease.


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## BryceM

Fair enough.


----------



## Amazon_Replica

Ottos will not eat hair algae. 


My regret is also a pleco, bought it at 2" it is now 15" lol and until I can trade him/her at the lfs I will keep it, kinda like it but really want my 55 back for a scape.


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## rich_one

ah... but florida flag fish devour hair algae!


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## lauraleellbp

orlando said:


> My Koi, they have all been eaten buy large birds..


*sigh* And I so want an outdoor pond... mine would end up overrun with walking catfish during the rainy season too... hazards of FL living (wouldn't trade though!)


----------



## Zippin

CAE was mine, picked on everyone in the community and now he is with other bigger fish that keep him in line at a friends place...


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## clerk6999

I moved to Europe and couldn't find any good places to buy fish so I adopted a pair of Piranha and a 10 inch Pleco from a guy who was PCSing. Unfortuanetly I could never keep anthing in the 55 gallon tank with them because they would rip it up or scratch them selves on it. It didn't help that I placed the tank in the middle of the entrance hallway where Me and my wife walked by six or seven times a day. They broke about five or six heaters and a filter or two. One of them had a missing eye and they were but ugly. My wife wouldn't let me feed them live fish and I never researched what they ate so I fed them the same pellots the guy gave me. They lived for about 3 years with me and the Pleco got to be about 15 inches. Finally, the Piranha got sick and died. I gave my Pleco to a guy with a huge Aquarium he built (about 20 feet long, three feet wide and 2 feet deep) and he gave me some plants. Now I have a community tank with plants and such and it's much nicer. I do miss the Pleco though.


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## sundew

Red-tailed Catfish.


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## ranchwest

Wow, read this whole thread, interesting. Some thoughts:

1) I once had a fish store and have had literally thousands of fish. In retrospect, there's something good about nearly all of them. A few get too big for aquariums, but the only normal sized fish I still can't stand at all is Chinese Algae Eaters. The rest, they just need the right setup.

2) Fish behave differently in different sized tanks and with different tankmates. Find out what other people think about a type of fish before burning a memory in your mind forever. The most violent fight I ever saw between two fish was an angel and a plecostomus in a 20 gallon long. Put those two fish in a 100 gallon tank and they probably get along just fine. 

3) If a fish can fit in another fish's mouth, assume that is where it will end up unless you learn otherwise. I had a 135 gallon tank with carefully matched/selected good sized fish that never fought at all, but they'd eat any small fish that entered the tank.

4) If a fish is very quick, assume it is an agitator/fin nipper until you learn otherwise.

5) Water changes, prefer 20% or less at a time. One big factor that is often overlooked is temperature.

6) Ich, temperature needs to be over 78 degrees, 83 is better if the fish don't distress. If it isn't a planted tank, add a lot of salt. 

7) Quarantine, if you aren't or can't q, dip the fish in a heavy salt solution before introducing into your display tank. It helps cut down on disease.

Specific fish:

1) Red devil -- you can easily spot the female, she's the dead fish.

2) Irridescent sharks, also known as pangasius catfish -- can get very large, as much as 3 feet!

3) Cardinals/Neons -- large initial losses are common, don't be shocked if it happens to you, if you can't bear the thought, don't buy the fish -- neons are usually easier than cardinals because neons are usually commercially raised and cardinals are often wild

4) elephant nose -- very sensitive, especially at first, very good jumpers, not a beginner fish

5) discus -- not a beginner fish

6) chocolate gourami -- not even an advanced fish, stay away unless you've got a pretty good idea of what you're doing

7) blue rams -- not the easiest fish to keep, very interesting and pretty if you can keep them, may be a little feisty for a small community tank

8) clown loaches -- neat fish, but if they get ick they don't have scales so it limits your treatment options, usually peaceful but sometimes don't like it when another fish tries to claim a territory, flipping over on their side is one of their antics and doesn't necessarily mean anything negative


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## LIONHEAD

A pair of beautiful Discus, that I was not ready for, a really bad impulse buy. Dead in three weeks........


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## grim

i bought a chinese alge eater the guy behind teh counter told me he would keep my tank nice and clean for a very long time as soon as he hit around three inches or so he stoped eating then he turned on my red tail shark and bore a hole in him i however dont have a heart and was able to get rid of the fish well leave it at that


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## Jerroldw91

Florida Flagfish. I bought 3 of them thinking they would be cool and would bring color to my tank. Well the male decided it was gonna become alpha male of the tank and killed about half of the other fish. I moved him and the 2 females into my 10 gallon were he insisted on reproducing witht he females (killing them). so now he is a bachelor in the 10 gallon all to himself. While he was in the 29 he would eat up all the plants, i changed to plastic but he decided to eat those too. 

The bad thing about him is he won't die. on the plus side if i forget to feed him for a few days, or a week, or erm a month (i havnt done this but it wouldnt surprise me if it worked) it doesnt matter!


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## Fishman123

Probably 2 giant danios. I was a noob at the time, and they seemed cool. Now they are just mediocre quick-moving nuisances.


----------



## Danielle

can I change mine? lol...

Right now my ember tetras are my biggest regret. Beautiful fish, very skittish though. Thats not the bad part however. They are freaking massive piggies! I can't get any food to anything else in the tank because the embers eat it! Hide sinking algae pellets deep in the plants for the shrimp? No problemo... doesn't matter if their little tummies area already packed with micro pellets.. they'll find and eat every last morsel. If a wafer piece happens to be out in the open it's like a shark feeding frenzy.

I'm going to have to devise some contraption to feed the shrimp so the tetras can't get to the food!

I dunno what I'm going to do when I add the pearl danios. They are slow feeders 

Maybe I'll have to donate the embers to the new pet store down the street.... or maybe they'll just eat themselves to death and save me the trouble of having to catch them.


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## trag

I've kept fish since 1975 so I have a few different experiences that stick in my mind.

1) Whichever goldfish I bought which brought in the anchorworms which killed my beloved Red Cap Oranda. I no longer have any memory of the parasite carrier, but that Red Cap was my beloved very first fish. I had her for years--and yes, she laid eggs once. At first anchor worms are just little easily removed clear slivers, but they grow anchors like grappling hooks when mature. The books at the time recommmend potassium permanganate, but it didn't seem to help. I pulled them off by hand, while I could, but once the mature ones started forming, and more were anchoring inside her gills... Well let's leave it at that. It's been thirty years and it's still bugging me...

2) Yellow Headed Jawfish. A marine fish which are beautiful and fun to watch. They will also jump out of a 30 gallon low (36" X 12") no matter how well the lid is secured and sealed. Perhaps they need a deeper tank, or maybe that would just give them a longer launching run.

3) Gold Severums. This one was actually kind of good, but as an earlier poster mentioned, severums get *big*. They will rival oscars for size. And they are voracious plant eaters--eat tough-as-nails-giant-sagitarious plant eaters. I bought six wanting to breed them when they were these cute little 2" circles. I thought they got maybe to the size of a jewel cichlid (4 - 5"). I put them in a 200 gallon tank. Then I went away to college and left the 200 gallon in my parent's basement. My Dad is wonderfully dedicated and did water changes every two weeks without fail--more reliably than I would have managed.

After a couple of years, between one summer and winter visit, I returned to just two gold severums, now grown to the size of full-sized oscars and about 60 little gold severums following them around the tank. So they did breed, but they were huge! And I couldn't keep any plants in the tank.

4) Ten years later, my roommate at the time and I built a new 200 gallon tank (the first "severum" tank was kind of ugly). He had been keeping fish about as long as I, and had a 40 gallon with some tiger barbs and kuhli loaches in it. So when we set up the 200 gallon, we moved his fish to the 200 gallon. Then we arranged with a pet store owner friend of ours to order us 100 young glowlights and 100 young neons, which we picked up still in the bags. 

We acclimated them, and released them, and it was feeding frenzy time for the six tiger barbs. They ate all except perhaps the dozen largest of each kind of tetra. You wouldn't think that there is enough room in that few barbs for that many tetras, but there is. The barbs went back to the 40.

5) Most recently (a few months ago) the cherry barb and/or the rasbora het. which brought in the mystery disease which killed off all eight cardinals, seven cherry barbs and four of six rasboras. At this point I'm pretty certain it was an internal parasite or bacteria, as there were never any external symptoms.

I never used to use quarantine tanks, figuring the trade off wasn't worth it. But now, I'm not buying any more new fish until I have one set up. I firmly believe that the rate of infection in imported fish is much higher now than it used to be. Looking at the fish in several LFS in the area, I think all livebearers and rasboras and cherry barbs should be treated for internal worms and bacteria before introducing into the community. There are probably other species as well, but these are the ones I've noticed that just look sickly everywhere I look. There are no externally visible signs of disease but the fish are listless and many in the tanks clamp fins and hover near the top.


----------



## KJS

guaiac_boy said:


> How about 6 zebra danios at the suggestion of my daughter? 2 have died of more or less natural causes. Somehow I still have 5, I think, since they won't stop chasing the rummies around long enough to count them. Does the math make sense to you? If you think SAEs are hard to catch, try these stupid things. They're mostly just a blur. So much for peaceful.


 I love the looks of zebra danios but their are insanity inducing behavior isn't worth it. Bought three green/emerald raspboras for my ten gallon planted tank in the bedroom. After a few months they ware as active as any danios (which is why I haven't had any since I was a kid) Named the emerald raspboras the Dashabouts and moved them to my 75 gal. planted tank. Their antics work in the big tank but I won't get any more.

Peacefull, planted are my thing.....:bathbaby:


----------



## dawntwister

Yey, wathcing danio's is like watching a tennis ball. But the longfinned danio's aren't as active.


----------



## overboard

My most regrettable purchase was in the early days, a relatively expensive pair of sailfin mollies for a new uncycled tank. The male was like a disease magnet; when a sailfin molly gets fin rot, they REALLY get fin rot. My most misguided purchase was a bumblebee goby. No one at the LFS could tell me anything besides they are sensitive and fussy. I went over to the bookrack, read that they love live food, and didn't really grasp the full meaning of that. I feed frozen food, so I thought it would be OK. A few weeks later my young son said, "mom, why aren't there any more platy babies?" The goby was just sitting on a rock, grinning and burping. Now he is my favorite.


----------



## deepdiver

Anything from Arizona Aquatics Gardens. 40% DOA both times I ordered from them.


----------



## crystalview

I got a bait and switch Juvi Discus and don't have the heart to put him down. So his stunted ugly self lives with the other 3 discus and always reminds me buyer be ware.


----------



## JanS

Gee, I hadn't checked into this thread for a while. Lot's of interesting stories, and lessons to be learned.


----------



## gunnerx

This thread actually helped me with a purchase decision.  There was a sale on Chinese Algae Eaters and was contemplating on getting them until I saw how many people listed them in this thread! I changed my mind and got Otos instead.


----------



## Jareardy

Well the fish was given to me so I didn't necessarily buy it but it would have to be my albino cory. He was fine in my other tank but when I transferred him to my new tank all he does is root through the sand I put in there and break loose all of my plants. I have to replant every day. Anybody want an albino cory??


----------



## davemonkey

My biggest regret was a pair of Green Severums. After years of cichlid tanks and seeing them as "calm" cichlids, I tried two juveniles in my first "planted" tank. They destryed a few of the plants and uprooted the rest, daily.


----------



## Sandman

I don't think I've ever had fish that I didn't like but I do regret getting twelve Buenos Aires Tetras for my planted tank. Within a few weeks they had stripped most of my plants clean! If you don't have a planted tank, they are great fish to have - very fast swimmers and nice schooling fish.


----------



## nkambae

I've been keeping fish for many, many years and I have learned a few hard lessons as well as a number of slightly less painful ones. I have three basic rules which have helped me to cope with the sometimes steep learning curve one can encounter in our hobby. The first rule of fish keeping is :

* Fish die and the second rule, like unto the first is:
* Big fish eat little fish, and the third, like unto the first two is:
* Many, many fish are aggressive toward their own kind and others.

If I find I am missing fish, I refer immediately to stu's three rules of fish keeping.
There are, of course, many corollaries and addenda.

- Do NOT anthropomorphize your fish. They are wonderful creatures but they are fish.
- Water changes can be very beneficial.
- Testing the water can be instructive.
- Disease happens. Some, like ich, are easily curable and some are not.
- The incidence of disease can be mitigated somewhat by proper quarantine methods.
- Know which fish BEFORE you purchase.
- Knowing which fish includes but is not limited to: maximum size, diet, habits, aggression, proper water parameters, et cetera ad nauseum.
- Do NOT EVER release your unwanted fish into the wild. (carp, walking catfish, snakeheads, cichlids, birds, lizards, and pythons in Florida, disease, hybrids... need I say more?) Trade 'em, sell 'em, euthanize 'em but NEVER, EVER release them into the wild. It is not more "humane" to release them in to the wild. 

This is hardly a complete list but it might be a way to somewhat lessen a bit of the heartbreak I have read in this thread. I would be happy to hear others' inputs in this matter. I apologize if this is viewed as a thread hijack. I needed to express myself. :mrgreen: :amen:

stu


----------



## dawntwister

Jareardy said:


> Well the fish was given to me so I didn't necessarily buy it but it would have to be my albino cory. He was fine in my other tank but when I transferred him to my new tank all he does is root through the sand I put in there and break loose all of my plants. I have to replant every day. Anybody want an albino cory??


Sounds like stories I have heard about dogs tearing up things, like a car, when they are not happy.

I have 4 albino cory's in my tank, which has a sand substrate. They use to swim around in circles. They were probably eating the algae on the glass. They never dig up my plants.

Why not trade him in at a local pet store for another fish.


----------



## bear24

The worst fish I ever added to a tank was some green corys. They attacked all my shrimp and uprooted small C. wentii daily. They were also lazy, never really searching for food that was a little hard to get to.


----------



## xandert

*Actually, it's a toss-up on one purchase I made and one rescue I accepted, both of which were species I did NOT know about.

Purchase - Small "electric blue lobster" (what the pet shop was selling it as). Cute as the ****ens. Put it into a 55g with a baby oscar. Baby oscar didn't even last 24 hours before the lobster caught and ate it.  I got rid of the lobster.

Rescue - Orange-finned loach, rescued at the same time as a young Firemouth cichlid. Add to a 125g community tank. Several fish massacred the first few days before I could finally figure out WHICH one of them was doing it! I actually and finally saw the loach attacking other fish. Removed it. End of massacre.

Since then, I don't buy or rescue ANYTHING without researching it thoroughly first!*


----------



## dawntwister

A pair of killifish were my worst purchase. They arrived from Rhode Island in perfect condition. They jumped out of the tank, even though it has a good top, after 3 days. .


----------



## Goat

I'd probably say clown loaches, got a pair of large ones, one died within a week, replaced with a smaller loach and it ended up being 4x more aggressive than the larger, chasing angels etc. 3 months later - It had some seizures last week from stress, (newly acquired algae, surprise!, and co2) and died shortly after. Now the single mellow loach is left. I think in retrospect I'd prefer to get some emerald or gold corys for bottom feeders. Any bad cory experiences? I have 6 or so ottos and 2 golden algae eaters also.


----------



## ranchwest

You're the second person today I've run across who reported aggressive clown loaches. I'm not disputing what you say, but I must say that has to be pretty rare. I've had many, many clown loaches and I don't recall ever having one be aggressive. No doubt that I've seen them defend themselves quite ably and assertively, but I can't remember ever having one be aggressive.


----------



## bacod253

Paradise fish. Way too aggressive for me and my other fish... No one told me...


----------



## ranchwest

bacod253 said:


> Paradise fish. Way too aggressive for me and my other fish... No one told me...


I hope this doesn't come across as rude, but it isn't their tank. You have to find out about the fish you put in your tank or you could have an unpleasant experience. Pretty much every specie of fish at the LFS is good for someone, but it may not be good for you.


----------



## cah925

chinese algae eater - mine was extremely territorial and aggressive. I never lost any fish because of that one, but he was a PITA.


----------



## Goat

Clown Loaches :



ranchwest said:


> No doubt that I've seen them defend themselves quite ably and assertively, but I can't remember ever having one be aggressive.


I'm hoping that it is somehow a fluke, my single one is very mellow and hangs out with my large golden algae eater. I've thought about getting another large one for him to hang out with and cross my fingers that it is not aggressive. I believe it may have something to do with their hiding places/cover. They hang out in a corner under some broadleaf plants (can't find it on here, must not be a true aquatic plant), but do not have a hole/cave to hide in. I know some people swear by having 4+ of them and they actually swim back and forth, mine only scavenges and hides.


----------



## ranchwest

Goat said:


> Clown Loaches :
> 
> I'm hoping that it is somehow a fluke, my single one is very mellow and hangs out with my large golden algae eater. I've thought about getting another large one for him to hang out with and cross my fingers that it is not aggressive. I believe it may have something to do with their hiding places/cover. They hang out in a corner under some broadleaf plants (can't find it on here, must not be a true aquatic plant), but do not have a hole/cave to hide in. I know some people swear by having 4+ of them and they actually swim back and forth, mine only scavenges and hides.


What does happen a lot of times is that a clown loach will wander into another fish's territory and that fish attacks the clown loach. The cloach loach is a pretty fierce fighter and will defend himself to the hilt. I'm wondering if that might be what has happened.


----------



## isenblatter

After reading through this hilarious thread. I have one of my own to add. My wife thought it would be cute to try and add some shrimp to my cichlid tank. HAHA, nice try. Imagine the look on the kids faces, 4,5,7, when the Jack Dempsey was carrying the ghost shrimp around sideways in his mouth like a dog carrying a bone, except the Jack was bouncing the shrimps head off the glass because the shrimp was to big to fit all the way in his mouth. So the Jack spits out the shrimp and then swallows him head first, and all that is hanging out of the Jack's mouth is the rear end of the shrimp. Now my kids call the Jack "shrimp butt eater".


----------



## ray-the-pilot

Well my most regrettable fish purchase comes with a story.

Way back in the 1970’s I set up a really fantastic 50 gal. El Natural planted aquarium. I didn’t have any exotic plants, just Amazon swards, and Jungle Val but it was really densely planted and artistic. It got lots of raves at the time and was probably way ahead of its time. 

Then I purchased three small Tinfoil Barbs. :Cry:

At first everything was OK but eventually I noticed that my plants were being trimmed. Not a problem, since I frequently had to do that myself. Soon I noticed that small plants were being pulled out of the substrate. I began to look for the cause. A research of the literature at the time confirmed that Tinfoil Barbs were aggressive plant eaters! :decision: By this time each fish was almost 4 inches and I didn’t have the heart to cast them out. 

I switched to plastic plants and enjoyed the fish for a few years. :yield:


----------



## OhioPlantedtankguy

cichlids bought them for the GF and had to tell her when the tank crashed and they died Still don't know why it crashed, i Under fed them, and i usually over feed, but they were only fed every other day but they always ate well at feeding time.


----------



## jaiko1975

Here's my sad story I purchased six black neon tetras and six neon tetras from pet smart...that was a months ago. I have left one black neon and 3 neon tetras... . the same day i got em home they started die on me one by one.as the story goes i noticed ick on my Serpa tetras and on my pleco time to panic.. thank god i had some ick treatment on hand. but almost lost all my fish stock in my 50g tank.:tinfoil3::typing:





_______________________________________________________________________________________
50G several Amazon swords, Palms, 3 Serpa Tetras, 5 Zebra Danios, 2 Sunburst platties,2 Swordtails,9 head and tail tetras,1 rubber nose pleco,2 Cory cats. 20g 1 Jelly Bean parrot c


----------



## 92cw12

i bought a green terror which was only 4inches and it killed almost everything 2*8 inch goldfish 16cm algae eater it didnt attack the 2 small kribs or my bolivian ram somehow then the green terror somehow ended up jumping out of its tank and died


----------



## benderisawesome

The most regrettable for me had to be kribensis. They're gorgeous and have such an interesting behavior. But once their eggs hatched they harassed every single fish I had in the tank. They wouldn't let the cories even come near the substrate. I had two banjo catfish and the kribs would go find their tails sticking up out of the substrate and they would pull them up out of the gravel and start nipping at them. I don't even have to tell you what they would do to my schooling fish (harlequin rasboras) They would even pester my 4 inch pleco. Thank god I had a spare 20g that I could set up so that they would have their own place, or else I would have had to take them back to the pet shop. Now they're as happy as can be, although if I get close to the tank they start staring me down like they think I'm gonna come eat their babies or something. But yeah if you're thinking about getting kribs I would recommend not having them in a community tank unless you've just got one gender.


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## Scipio

Mine was a CAE.. I had a 10g tank when I was a kid and had the 2 of everything in that tank 

I had ugly rainbow colored gravel and some chessy deco in there including a stone turtle that I placed in there that was in my Mom's garden. Well every morning I would notice that I had some missing fish, it first started with the smaller tetras and I was wondering why I could never find them. I figured since they were so small that they were late night snacks for the bigger fish like the angels. But then the bigger fish started missing I started to wonder why I would never see any dead bodies. 

Until one night I stayed up and went up to the tank with the lights out and shined a flash light in the tank.... to my horror I saw the freaking CAE dragging down my last angel fish under the stone turtle. I lifted the turtle and there were all of my dead fish :-x ALL 20 of them dead!!!!

I was so upset I netted the CAE, dumped him in the toilet and flushed him :toimonst:
Well when I got up in the morning to go to school, I went to the toilet I saw the freaking CAE sucking on the toilet!!! He must have clamped before he got sucked down. Well I was young and really super mad at the time that I wanted him dead on the spot. So I gave him a bleach bath and I sure enjoyed (at the time) his death!!!! Meh... I'm not gona lie... I still don't feel bad about killing him \\/


----------



## overboard

I have three female kribs in a 50 gallon tank and I have not been able to add anything else since. The crowntail betta that had been in there a year had to come out (they chewed all of his fins). I put in two baby angels, about the size of a quarter, and they killed and half-ate one in twenty minutes. They are beautiful, but they are definitely cichlids...


----------



## Sunstar

Probably platy... they are cute as a button, but they breeeeeed.


----------



## Dielectric

1. Red & Black Pacus
2. Some sort of Snakehead, took a chunk out of my forearm
3. Silver Dollars
4. Yoyo loaches, harassed everything in the tank
5. Serpae Tetras, all other fish in tank became tailess
6. Channel cats

most of these were made when i was a kid


----------



## eveliens

This has been a really interesting thread. Most of these fish I have always avoided due to their reputation, or I've had them and really, really enjoyed them (severums and paradise fish!).

I would have to say, I do regret buying _Anomolachromis thomasi_. Pretty much all of the literature I read said they are pretty peaceful (similar to kribs). These fish didn't read it obviously! I had two. Had to separate them because of beatings. Each one proceeded to pillage their respective tanks, harassing adult angels and gouramis and barbs. The smaller one eventually died, but I still have the larger one... in a mbuna tank! :twitch: Nary a nip on him btw.

And the lampeye killies. Awesome little fish. Not so awesome in my water. One by one they faded away or had fungal infections.

Purple Spotted/Rainbow Gudgeons- they were cool until they went carpet surfing. No one warned me that they jump!

The rest of the fish I only regret because once they passed I could never find anymore. I adored my pair of checkerboard cichlids and have been trying to replace them for almost four years now. Likewise, I had a pair of thicklipped gouramis, and can't seem to find any healthy ones.


----------



## CTD

My worst fish purchase ever was two red belly pacu's i thought my 120 gallon tank would be big enough for the devils they would constantly crash into the tank walls splash water everywhere after knocking the glass lid off he tank causing it to fall on the floor and busting into a million pieces i never want one of them b-heads again.


----------



## dawntwister

At fishlore the red belly pacu's are described as generally peaceful and will take care of themselves against more aggressive tank mates. They may also eat smaller fish species if kept in the same tank.
Just shows you that fish have attitudes. Your story sounds like what I have heard when dogs get bored they get destructive.


----------



## DarioDario

Jack Dempsey for sure, one of the meanest fish ever


----------



## AquaVu

Almost every cardinal Tetras died within weeks of purchase and I have been keeping fishes for nearly 40 years. Regrettable but I'll probably keep on buying them. I just love the look of a school of tetras swimming through my planted tank. So very peaceful


----------



## supersmirky

Banded Leporinus!


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## Sunstar

perhaps my platy(as much as I do love them) that keep populating... I would like another species that isn't so...prolific (says the owner of a tank full of cherry shrimp out of breeding control)


----------



## adechazal

I dropped four red tailed tinfoil barbs into my 180g about a year ago. Within two weeks they had doubled in size and were eating and uprooting the plants. Had to pull out all the plants and drop baffles in the tank to slowly coralle them into a corner and net them out (2 hours later).

Moral of the story: What goes into a 180 stays in a 180 so buy with caution.


----------



## gasteriaphile

I'm only on page 12, but this is a great thread! I am learning alot about fish that aren't on those lists in the books of "fish to avoid". Some are, but "long-finned Black Skirt Tetras"? Those are supposed to be OK!


----------



## dawntwister

Black skirt tetras seem more aggressive than the serpae tetras. 

Sometimes it depends on the size of tank an other inhabitants as to what fish are okay. For example I saw on youtube someone had a male betta with green barbs. The tank was large and since the school was large they played among themselves and left the betta alone.


----------



## jaidexl

Mine was Betta splendans, a blue veil tail. Their fins are not natural and it shows, this particular one had me medicating fin rot twice before it finally died. This was an established, cycled tank, I can't imagine the trouble I'da had in a 100% water change betta bowl.

Same deal with my veil tail angelfish, I don't t9otally regret that purchase as he's still with me and is really amusing, but the thread fins have the same problem, they aren't natural and don't cope with existence very well, lots of fungus spots and even shedding away and regrowing at times. It's very annoying and there isn't much I can do about it, it certainly doesn't warrant medication since it's a minute, reoccurring issue. It's also hard to mix him with any species of tetra, or even corydoras, that don't harass him for a taste of his tantalizing thread fins. I will definitely not be buying anymore hybridized fish with big beautiful fins in the future, evolution and adaptation work for good reasons and we seem to ignore those for our own visual pleasure, brings on more personal (and fish) stress than anything, sometimes.


----------



## BryceM

jaidexl said:


> I will definitely not be buying anymore hybridized fish with big beautiful fins in the future, evolution and adaptation work for good reasons and we seem to ignore those for our own visual pleasure, brings on more personal (and fish) stress than anything, sometimes.


Well, this isn't really the right thread for this, but I couldn't agree more. There are plenty of fish in nature stunning enough to fill any of my fish-keeping needs. Evolution/God/Intelligent design - whatever - prepared them pretty well for their natural environment. Our meddling usually knocks their hardiness down a notch or two.


----------



## smackpixi

The dwarf gouramis of the world agree BryceM.


----------



## Complexity

Any and all fish when I first started keeping fish again. I had no idea what I was doing, and the fish suffered as a result. Only the common pleco survived to be given to a LFS.

I won't even think of keeping a tiger barb of any kind. I bought some as a kid and they destroyed the fins of a lot of the fish in my tank.

And bettas. They are so pretty, but I just don't have the knack for them. I did all I knew to do, but they still died. I still think they're very pretty, but won't touch one.


----------



## plurmaster

arrowheads puffer are lurkers..they basically burrow under the sand to wait fo its prey. If you have heaily planted tank..i dont recommand getting them. My pair uprrot least 1 plant per day. Is reallyt frustrating.


----------



## starrystarstarr

One Angel fish i bought was a real freaking devil. terrorized everyone else in the tank including two older angles three times its size. I donated that demon to my LFS.


----------



## supersmirky

They are pretty...but some can be down right nasty


----------



## rahamen

Easy Chinese Algae Eater

Rgds


----------



## Cliff Mayes

Just as a reminder because I am sure everyone knows this is that fish and derogatory terms do not go together. Mean, nasty etc. are not something that fish are, usually. Fish obey many of the same imperatives we do but have different tools to deal with them. Most creatures do the best they can under the circumstances that we humans create for our own purposes.


----------



## bryony

Shrimp, unfortunately, after spending a lot on S-S+ grade CRS, the heat gets them. They survive all right, but I've only gotten 10 now-adult babies out of 7 females being berried a lot this summer. I wanted to put them in my nano tank once I had a good population. But since that isn't happening, now I just want to get rid of my shrinking colony. 

My worse fish purchase, would have to be the N. multifaciatus, shelldwellers. They seem to breed to fill whatever space you put them in, and I kept moving them to larger and larger tanks. Now, I have a 55 gallon tank full of them, and I want my tank back.


----------



## brion0

My brother inlaw bought me a 29 gal. at a yard sale. He gave me two Albino oscars with it from the 5 he had in a 55 gal. They were the first fish I ever had. The bigger one killed the other. He now lives in a 55 gal. I turned the 29 into a planted tank. This gift has cost me alot of $$. An his tank is still to small. I may be starting a 55 gal. planted tank soon!!


----------



## dawntwister

brion0 said:


> My brother inlaw bought me a 29 gal. at a yard sale. He gave me two Albino oscars with it from the 5 he had in a 55 gal. They were the first fish I ever had. The bigger one killed the other. He now lives in a 55 gal. I turned the 29 into a planted tank. This gift has cost me alot of $$. An his tank is still to small. I may be starting a 55 gal. planted tank soon!!


Sounds like something I did when I started. Bought a fish that would get to big for the tank. Have you thought of trading the oscar in for other fish at LFS?

Yeh, this hobby can be expensive. Now I remember why I left my tanks with friend when I moved in the 70's. You can spend and spend on this hobby.


----------



## Sunstar

Don't tell my husband that... >.>

Ugh, I don't think I should have eaten those shrimp... I feel sick.


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## dawntwister

Sunstar said:


> Don't tell my husband that... >.>
> 
> Ugh, I don't think I should have eaten those shrimp... I feel sick.


So you made dinner and told him you bought shrimp from store but they were from you tank? Now you feel sick because you know the shrimp.


----------



## Sunstar

LOL....

Not quite. 

Don't tell my husband that aquariums are expensive.

My sister bought a shrinp ring for lunch and I ate that. Now I have my head in the can reliving lunch. But when it comes to it, don't introduce me to my food.


----------



## maddyfish

African cichlids, basically they are tetras, except they are not plant safe.

All they do is swim around in circles endlessly all day long.



plus I inherited a Jack Dempsey, it is 9" long and boring and it takes up and entire 55 gallon tank. Too mean to be with anything peacefull, too wimpy to be with anything truly mean. 
But I am stuck with it, it was my brother in laws before he died.


----------



## dawntwister

It is not really the aquariums that are expensive. It's the aquascaping of the aquarium that can be continuously added to or redone.

Sunstar I was just punning with you. I too have problem eating things, like frog legs, that I have had for pets.


----------



## spinxarelli

Chinese Algae Eater - Pestering at it's finest. Impossible to catch out of a plant tank without destroying the aquascaping ! Never again,,,never never never.


----------



## dawntwister

maddyfish briggs would disagree with you about the African cichlids. He has them in a planted tank and has no problems. Perhaps he could help you. I have read the are cave dwellers, thus if they had some caves perhaps they wouldn't be your worst fish.


----------



## 808aquatics

spinxarelli said:


> Chinese Algae Eater - Pestering at it's finest. Impossible to catch out of a plant tank without destroying the aquascaping ! Never again,,,never never never.


i cheers to that


----------



## brion0

dawntwister said:


> Sounds like something I did when I started. Bought a fish that would get to big for the tank. Have you thought of trading the oscar in for other fish at LFS?
> 
> Yeh, this hobby can be expensive. Now I remember why I left my tanks with friend when I moved in the 70's. You can spend and spend on this hobby.


I think about getting rid of him, but he is a good pet, an my wife is fond of him. My kids would want to know where he went.


----------



## krisha

A Ram Pair - they layed their eggs, but the vere eaten. The male then became an evil little thing hunting everyting, ealing all my shrimp and chased the female ram till she lost all her color and eventually died.


----------



## Sunstar

dawntwister said:


> Sunstar I was just punning with you. I too have problem eating things, like frog legs, that I have had for pets.


Oh.... I'd probably try frogs legs at least once. Twice if I don't like it.

on topic:
I still think the platy were regretable...they are SOOO prolific. And the other regret, probably the goldfish I had in the past. I was not very well informed and I am sure they weren't happy.


----------



## Peter16

would have to say my cray fish (yabbie)
He ate every single fish in my aquarium, each morning i would find a new carcase.


----------



## Zapins

Hehe... I had a crayfish once his name was "Cray." It got huge after a few weeks and then finally disappeared one day. We couldn't figure out what had happened to it. Then after two or three months we were down in the basement changing the water filter for the house and lo and behold there was Cray! Dried up in the basement. I have no earthly idea how it got there since it was on a raised concrete platform with a small wall around it in a room joined onto the main basement. The fish tank was on the 2nd floor, so it somehow managed to get down two flights of stairs and climb up a concrete wall into the basement.

Amazing little buggers...


----------



## NeonFlux

5 blood parrots and 5 baby silver dollars in a 20 gallon uncycled. I was TOTALLY inexperienced until I had internet. I went to Aquaria Central where I learned and researched. Learned about stocking, cycling, bio-load, then I learned some hard ways etc... Eventually the tables turned dramatically within last year from January to December, hehe, I got myself a nice 60 gallon high tech planted community fish tank with pressurized co2 and everrrything~


----------



## Goat

krisha said:


> A Ram Pair - they layed their eggs, but the vere eaten. The male then became an evil little thing hunting everyting, ealing all my shrimp and chased the female ram till she lost all her color and eventually died.


Wow, that is crazy! I have 5 rams or so, laid eggs my first week, ate them all, but always been mellow bottom tank fish, living in the plants since then. I've never seen rams behave that badly heh. If you ever try again, make sure there are more females than males, I've been told that cuts down on the aggression.


----------



## ShaneS

I say chinese algae eaters, those things are such a pain to catch


----------



## brion0

brion0 said:


> I think about getting rid of him, but he is a good pet, an my wife is fond of him. My kids would want to know where he went.


Got rid of the Oscar, it was a sad day.


----------



## berniekooi

CAE by far. I am down to one and he just annoys all the other fish...but like ShaneS said, they are very hard to catch.


----------



## saram521

Dwarf crays. I really like shrimp and thought the dwarf crays would be just as cool, but they were so boring. I'd be lucky to see them leave their perch from one of my plants in order to simply walk around. They are really cute little things though.


----------



## Karebear

My most regretable fish is right now. I was given a lovely red melon discus, we put it in the upstairs discus tank at the store. The discus started getting stressed, I knew the tank was drasticly overstocked and did a water test. The tank was crashing. PH had dropped thru the floor, nitrites were showing and of course the ammonia was raising. The poor fish were being burned by the water they were in. We did emergency water changing and I took a calculated risk to save my fish and brought my discus home. Of course no hospital tank so it went into my 100 gal with all my discus. Three days later my fish started coming down sick. I have lost three so far and it looks like discus plauge. From reading about this nasty bug it looks like if I keep the secondary diseases from taking hold I should be able to save some of my babies. Hope so anyway. I really love my fish.


----------



## Darksome

It has to be neon tetras, I have bought them in three different occasions...and they all just dropped like flies one per day. I would go to the store to get a return and my water was perfect and I would acclimate them for about an hour too. So I gave up trying to keep them. Glowlights and black neons are best for me.


----------



## Darksome

Dracolique said:


> Well, it wasnt a purchase... but still very regrettable:
> 
> A few months ago on craigslist I saw a local angelfish breeder giving away 1,500 free juvenile black and white marbled angelfish because they had some sort of mystery illness and their fins were becoming ragged, so they werent fit for selling to the LFS's in the area.
> 
> I went to the guys house, took one look and thought I knew what was going on... it looked to me like Ich + fin-rot... and I have easily dealt with those things before, so I figured I could bring these angels back from "the dead". I thought perhaps the breeder was just an idiot that didnt know how to treat common diseases.
> 
> I took the fish home, put them in my 55-gallon "quarantine buckets" (5 of them), raised the temp to 90 degrees farenheit, did a Praziquantel bath right at the start, then started dosing for funguses and Ich.
> 
> 2 weeks later, and after dozens of treatments and water changes, I had 4 fish left out of 1,500. They are still alive today, and are healthy as far as I can tell, but are horribly scarred and disfigured from whatever that horrible disease was.
> 
> I still dont know what it was... but I'll tell you this: It sure as hell wasnt simply Ich or fin-rot.
> 
> Maybe that breeder was smarter than I thought


Could it be Chilodonella or Costia? I've had it in some of my fish and barely any survive, tried every possible treatment and nothing. Some never got it which I assume were immune.


----------



## cougar1331puma

My most regrettable purchase was a Polypterus senegalus for my 55 g. At that time I had guppies, and he maimed one, but didn't kill it.
On that note, I received a Labidochromis caeruleus, (yellow lab cichlid) from my cousins. Recently, I had added 3 more glass cats to my school of 4, all about 3-4 inches long. She (the cichlid) promptly attacked 1 by its fin, and I removed her immediately, I was very mad. 
And as the list goes on, a kissing gourami bought for my girlfriends 5 g before we knew anything about fish :doh: and soon moved to a 20g L, and later to a 55g, then given to a crazy, albeit nice, fish lady.


----------



## Evil-Lynn

Well when I was around 10 years old I bought a goldfish in a bowl at the pet shop. We didn't have the internet back then to look for info and thus I assumed when the people at the store said "he will be fine" they were telling the truth. Not surprisingly my poor fish died within 2 weeks in that nasty bowl.

Nearly 15 years later I have learned much more about fish keeping through personal experience, the internet and literature on the subject.


----------



## dawntwister

Evil-Lynn said:


> Well when I was around 10 years old I bought a goldfish in a bowl at the pet shop. We didn't have the internet back then to look for info and thus I assumed when the people at the store said "he will be fine" they were telling the truth.


They are still saying the same thing about goldfish.

So what does 1 do to keep goldfish living long?


----------



## vancat

Big tank and regular water changes.
Not a "goldfish bowl".


----------



## artgecko

Guppies.... Not that guppies are bad or evil, in and of themselves, but what was INSIDE the ones I bought was evil. 

I bought a trio of nice looking guppies at a big-box petstore once and after a ~week long quarentine, I put them in my low light planted tank that housed a school of my most prized fish...dwarf neon rainbows. 

Alas, about 4-5 weeks later, after showing no external signs, I started noticed red worms coming out of the guppies' anus... Yep. Internal parasites. I treated that tank with every medication known to mankind...treated my other tanks "just in case" as well... fed medicated food (with wormer in it), etc. For about 3 months trying in vain to rid myself of the red worms. All of the rainbows and other inhabitants that were infected died. The fish in my other tanks survived, but they never had visible symptoms. 

I will never buy guppies from a retailer again... And what really kills me, is that with internal parasites there are no external signs to look for and because the "incubation" period is so long, even a 4 week quarentine wouldn't be enough. 

The saddest part of this whole story is that I have never again found dwarf neon rainbows locally and never as cheap as I got those particular fish...And it was all lost for some $2.99 guppies.

Art


----------



## dawntwister

benderisawesome said:


> The most regrettable for me had to be kribensis. Once their eggs hatched they harassed every single fish I had in the tank. If I get close to the tank they start staring me down like they think I'm gonna come eat their babies or something.


I find this funny for the kribs I had in the 70's hid from me when I came up to the tank.


----------



## dawntwister

I bought a group of zebra danios from a Pet Supermarket for $.50, which slowly disappeared. They would get a big bulge under their lip. I thought and the LFS owner thought that it was from an injury. Then the next group of fish, which I got from an individual, got big mouths and the majority died. 

I dosed the tank with several medications. It wasn't until most were gone that I finally found the right medication, which was Melafix for bacteria.

With in the past few months all of the fish I get from this chain die with in a few weeks. They have new personal and they aren't taking care of the fish. In fact yesterday I saw 1 fish that had a ball of white fur on it.


----------



## ddavila06

for me, one of my worst adquisitions would have to be the skunk loach, those little evil things took an eye off my iridiscent shark and bit up a bala shark...

very regretable in a way are my 2 little cute tiny red ear slider turtles, 5-6 years later the measure like 8 inches and have a 110 gallon all for themselves love them but hate them kind of relashionship:-#


----------



## WhiteDevil

Rainbow Shark


first he was fine, then got more and more territorial towards the other fish, I added 2 new kuhlis and within 3 hours he was out and gone, tore one of my kuhlis to pieces, he lived but he was hurt bad.


----------



## surpera1

angelfish - they always die


----------



## polardbear

Guppies. The males constant harrassment of the females drove me crazy and then it took me 6 months to finally get rid of the last of the fry. They'd just keep reappearing...


----------



## peacock

Chinese algae eater...
They/we should stop selling/buying those.


----------



## GrandePippo

For me it has to be the silver dollars. I bought seven WITHOUT reading anything about them beforehand. Just went to the store and liked them....

At the time I only had anubias nana, vallisneria, java moss and java fern. A day lated almost all of my plants were gone. 

A truly regretable purchase!


----------



## dawntwister

artgecko said:


> I bought a trio of nice looking guppies at a big-box petstore once and after a ~week long quarentine, I put them in my low light planted tank that housed a school of my most prized fish...dwarf neon rainbows.
> 
> I started noticed red worms coming out of the guppies' anus... Yep. Internal parasites.


Have you bought any other fish from this store and had similar problems?


----------



## dawntwister

Karebear said:


> I have lost three so far and it looks like discus plauge. From reading about this nasty bug it looks like if I keep the secondary diseases from taking hold I should be able to save some of my babies. Hope so anyway. I really love my fish.


What was the result?


----------



## mudboots

Bought 5 platties, a CAE, and an upsidedown cat at WalMart for my son's aquarium. I moved the upsidedown cat into my 125 later to let him have some play room. Two days later I realized ALL of the Walmart fish had ich. I am now treating the 20 and the 125 for ich, which is a real pain in that much aquarium. Even my native "guppies" (Gambusia sp.) became infected. I've decided to set up a 10 gallon just as a quarantine tank so this doesn't happen again.


----------



## Gibby

Dwarf gouramis. They keel over for no reason.


----------



## dawntwister

Gibby said:


> Dwarf gouramis. They keel over for no reason.


If you mean the orange ones, I have read that they are not hardy. Did you check your nitrates?


----------



## Gibby

dawntwister said:


> If you mean the orange ones, I have read that they are not hardy. Did you check your nitrates?


It's both the orange and the blue ones. Nitrates were within normal parameters for the tank.


----------



## Karebear

Bringing in a new discus



dawntwister said:


> What was the result?


I lost four of my favorite fish and the others are now finally starting to get their color back. I have one young blue angel, it looks like a blue diamond with higher fins and it is now just not thriving. I am waiting to put in a new floor in a few months and after that I will redo my tank and add a few more discus. Yeah, that cost me I figure each fish was worth $65-$150, and that is not to mention the emotional anguish


----------



## Wire Fox Terror

Am I the only OCD person that can't buy a fish without considering every option and doing every last bit of research? I can honestly say I have never regretted a purchase because I always went into it knowing exactly what I was getting. My lack of spontaneity works great for this hobby but poorly for other aspects of life.


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## Sue Samson

You aren't the only OCD person who researches up one side and down the other, but you're evidently more successful than some of us. In spite of my research, I've had some surprises. For instance, I've never had delicate otos. They've been my toughest fish (when a heater malfunctioned and killed everything else in a 20-gallon, the otos survived; they don't die on me when I first get them either). On the other hand, with corys I have the kind of trouble I expected with otos. Research told me cardinal tetras tend to be shy, but not that I'd find that shyness so irritating it spoiled my pleasure in how beautiful they are. After several years out of the hobby, I recently set up my 7-gallon bowfront again and got some neons hoping they'd be a bit better. To my delight they're absolutely different -- friendly, up front, right there giving you the eye kind of fish, which more than makes up for their being a little less spectacular. That kind of difference isn't covered in most of the available descriptions of fish and their needs in books or online, and I've seen some contradictory statements about it in forums like this, although at least you can find out how some of these kinds of fish behave for other people before committing to them. I'm now thinking about what to put in a 12-gallon cube and know CPDs are not for me. I think ember tetras may be and am still unsure about some of the small rasboras.


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## northtexasfossilguy

Simpte 27 said:


> Thats easy.........my Chinese Algae Eater.


Make that four. Urm, three now (one disappeared). They harass everything to some extent, but they seem to still eat some of the spot algae on the glass. Stick with Oto's people.


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## mountaindew

The first fish. Thats how this all started.


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## dawntwister

Sue Samson said:


> Research told me cardinal tetras tend to be shy, but not that I'd find that shyness so irritating it spoiled my pleasure in how beautiful they are. I recently set up my 7-gallon bowfront again and got some neons and to my delight they're absolutely different -- friendly


Sometimes I wonder if fish fear people because bad experiences and have a long memory. For in a pet store noticed 1 Ram Cichlid kept staring at me, as if begging me to take him home, and the other in the tank hiding.


----------



## Raul-7

Another to add to the list, Chocolate gourami's. Received a shipment of 8, 7 were DOA. The last one lived for 2 months and then perished.


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## rich815

I will never buy gouramis any more. They all seem to eventually get dropsy for me. With many other fish types through the years never any serious issues. Just the gouramis with dropsy. No more.

Also SAEs. They are WAY over-rated on their algae-eating skills. And are a huge pain in the butt to get out of the tank. Clever little buggers. I had three in my 72 gal. Sure they nibbled on something here and there but never really ate any of the minor BBA I had or any other algae that was around. As they grew they become very aggresive at eating time snagging pellets and worms whle chasing away all the tetras. Catching the first one with the net was easy. I just did it when he was focused on grabbing as many blackworrms as he could before the tetras could. The other two SAEs immediately clued in however. For weeks as I approached the tank, net in hand or not, they would disappear into the plants. I eventually got them but only during a water change when I dropped the level to about 30% and was able to corner them. Never again.


----------



## lycaon

DANIOS! Oh man these guys are annoying! They snapped at all my shrimp killing who knows how many, they uprooted my hairgrass on multiple occasions, they eat everything before my bottom dwellers get a chance and since the eat everything all the time the poo everywhere. I have now moved them into my 37 hex in the kitchen and the 29 i had them in is now a happy little community of kuhlis and shrimp that are now doing much,much better


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## Medaka

This is an easy one... _Gambusia holbrooki_! Try selling them to your local fish shop, they'll look at you like you are crazy! Despite being the pretty dalmation strain, they wouldn't buy even one!

The next biggest mistake would be the two different Limia species that I got from a local hobbyist, the fish shops don't like to buy them either! Even worse, after separating the sexes, the females kept dropping fry for six freaking months! At least Gambusia eat their fry!

The moral to the story: Beware what you breed, you might get stuck with tons of them.


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## dawntwister

Medaka said:


> This is an easy one... _Gambusia holbrooki_


Read this and you will understand why no one wants them. Seems in some areas they are worse than kudzu.


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## Medaka

I'm wasn't trying to sell them to Australians, and they are naturalized where I live in the US so that's not the problem. Instead, it's their reputation for being hostile towards tankmates, and it's true, they are nasty little fish, but they are not as vicious as people make them out to be. Gambusia are nice fish for inhabiting water bowls and small container water gardens, they just shouldn't be housed in a community tank.


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## Tausendblatt

My most regrettable fish purchase is 2 Black Moor goldfish. I have had them for 3 years and I can't keep any plant besides hornwort and bladderwort with them. They love to eat leaves and I can't get rid of them because they are my brother's and it's not up to me. I bought the tank they are in for $350 and now there is one left, only fish in the tank. (Coldwater and tends to get nipped by other fish) I learned the hard way that moss is not "herbivore safe." It is the worst choice to have with large cyprinids. WORST. It gets pulled up all over the place. Makes an aweful mess.

Tinfoil barbs I have as well, they are even more avid plant eaters but they get along with more fish and I just like them for some reason. Bad thing is, I'd prefer to get a bigger tank for them but have no where to put it. They are in a 39''x29''x15'' tank... with sump... only plants they leave alone are crinums. Not even moss. NOT EVEN JAVA FERN!


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## armedbiggiet

SAE... The worse, no use when they get so big. After they had fish food would never touch algae and love to suck on my discus for some reason.


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## rhodophyta

Zebra plecos when they were something brand new. The some of a pet shop owner had brought some in to work with and had a few left he had only 3/4 of the way killed. Sunken eyes and sunken bellies. He tried to sell them but I ended up getting them free with something else I bought. I worked with those doomed fish for a few months before the last one perished. I was depressed in the fish room even afterwards, and got rid of and still won't have a 55 in my house years later since that's the size tank I kept them in.


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## thrillreefer

From a planted tank point of view: Archerfish. Couldn't keep any plants alive for long due to brackish water (besides maybe java fern). As a pet though, he was awesome. Trained to jump and eat crickets out of my fingers and then shoot down the ones that I placed in the cage above the tank. 

Rescued a tank of ugly white platies once. Bad decision. Just kept breeding and turning out uglier and uglier generations. bleh


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## F1_Cobra

Until today I don't think we'd made a regrettable fish purchase....but today the wife and daughter had business out of town and since we live in a rural area those trips to large towns are usually the only time we hit a fish store, so I made a list of things I needed for her to pick up....one of those being some Otto's since we needed some algae control after our pleco died......I gave distinct instructions in writing of what species to get and made sure to tell her "Do NOT get any Chinese algae eaters"......Well, I'll give ya three guesses what she brought home, but you'll only need one.....yep, she brings home a Gold algae eater, and tells me the lady at the lfs looked in a book and said "these are the same species as the Otto's" so she bought one...fortunately only one.

I don't know why the lady would say that since they are not the same species are they?......I honestly expect more from a mom and pop aquarium shop, but this is not the first time we've purchased from them and been sold something that wasn't what they claimed....aquatic plants included....so it kinda hacks me off thinking they do stuff like that just to make a buck....or are they actually that ignorant about the fish they sell?

The store is an hours drive from home so theres no way i'm gonna make the drive to return a $4 fish, but service like that really makes me never want to deal with them again....but the next closest lfs is about 80 miles away instead of 50.

I guess we'll give this guy a chance, but i've read so much negative stuff about them I don't expect to keep him long....we'll see.....He didn't exactly have a great day himself since I put him into my Barb tank with over a dozen adult Barbs....needless to say they gave him quite an initiation....bout like a pack of wolves....lol.


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## Cliff Mayes

Since being introduced to Otos I have always kept some. The fat ones seem to do better than the thin ones so get the fat ones.

As I have said many times, even though many small Mom and Pop LFSs start out with the best intentions the exigencies of earning a profit sometimes get in the way of practice. The reason why your Wife ended up with an Algae Eater could be for the reasons you gave; everyone cannot be familiar with everything; or it could be something else. Who knows? What matters is that you ended up with something you did not want. The Algae Eaters can be bad news in an aquarium but is not a good reason for allowing the fish to be abused. Try to get the fish a new home or put it out of its misery as quickly and painlessly as you can.

Otos seem to do better, even though they do not school or shoal, in groups. Do not expect to see all of them regularly, especially in a heavily planted tank. The only thing better, for algae control, is one of the Ancistrus species although I do not know if they eat the same stuff.


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## mudboots

Regarding F1 Cobra's CAE issue, I loathed the one I had. It was in a 20 gallon tank and terrorized everything in it. But since I tossed it into the 125 it has actually become a great addition to the clean up crew. I am not sure what it eats exactly, but I certainly see it cleaning leaves very often, mostly hangs out with a few of the otos I have in there, and it does not bother any of the tank inhabitants. The only trouble I ever notice is if the CAE beats the bristlenose pleco to an algae wafer, she'll buzz that dude off in a hurry (the pleco being the victor; she's pretty tough with those cheek spurs flashed out). I guess all of that swimming space keeps the energy level spent, so less excess for agression...just my 2 cents.


----------



## F1_Cobra

Cliff Mayes said:


> What matters is that you ended up with something you did not want. The Algae Eaters can be bad news in an aquarium but is not a good reason for allowing the fish to be abused. Try to get the fish a new home or put it out of its misery as quickly and painlessly as you can.


No worries.....once he found the hidy holes I made for him he was able to get some relief from the Barbs....I'm keepin a close eye on him and if they continue to attack him i'll take him out and get rid of him. From our past experiences, once the new wears off the barbs will leave him alone....at least thats how they did with the pleco and cory's we'd added.


----------



## MotionInsilver

pea puffers- they're not nice to other fish with beautiful finnages. Ended up getting a species only tank for them.


----------



## rich815

MotionInsilver said:


> pea puffers- they're not nice to other fish with beautiful finnages. Ended up getting a species only tank for them.


LOL! Almost any info on the web about them would have told you that! Then again I bought two spotted puffers and one was very peaceful and continues to be and the other an aggresive bastard! That said any fish with long fins that might resemble food (red bettas! looks like blood worms!) they would go after. I eventually got rid of the bad one and the other lives with a couple of "wild-type" bettas, with more moderate finnage, and some endler/guppy crosses and some harbrosus cories quite peacefully. I keep him well-fed though!


----------



## MotionInsilver

Ha! I still have the love for puffers because of those little guys though that was the only impulse buy I ever did. That was probably over 6-8 years ago though.


----------



## Andyflower

Where can I purchase "fresh" fish (not farm raised) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. What I'm looking for are fish markets, supermarkets, maybe even meat markets so long as they carry fish. Can anyone out there help a new Coloradan with some info?.

Thanks.


----------



## mydragonslady

1) An otocinclus that sucked the scales off a gorgeous crowntail betta :.( 

2) A guppy the LFS talked me into buying to cycle a tank. He terrorized everything in the tank to no end. Finally flushed the poor guy because the LFS wouldn't take him back after a week. 

3) Nine green tiger barbs... LOVED watching them... so frisky and playful... but they terrorized and stressed nearly everything in the tank so badly the black skirt tetras wouldn't get their color back. Neither would the rummy nosed tetras which constantly hid under a leaf. The only fishy critter that wasn't afraid of the green tiger barbs, ironically, was the smallest in there: a bumblebee gobi :.) He doesn't play! Went right after them and would headbutt them in the side if they came near him. LFS did take the green tiger barbs back though, because they had assured me two days before there wouldn't be a problem.


----------



## Mollicus

Hands down the worst fish purchase I ever made was the adorable little "polka-dot catfish" at the lfs.

He was labeled as such.. "polka-dot catfish" and absolutely adorable. About 2" long, shiny silver... black spots... long whiskers... yeah, can you see where I'm going with this?

6" later, that pictus ate every fish I had in my tank. He spared nothing. He somehow managed to kill an angelfish twice his size. After a month of keeping a 30g with just this little guy in it, I gave him away in the newspaper, and I refuse to buy carnivorous catfish ever again.

He was really pretty though...


----------



## Dev

My only real regret is when I was about 8 years old and knew nothing about cycling etc. I netted a bunch of minnows from the local pond and threw them in a 10 gallon tank with tap water. Packed to the brim with fish with no gravel, no filter, no dechlorinator, not even a lid or airstone. I did this twice and just didn't understand why my perfectly clean water was killing all of the fish and turning cloudy. Doesn't get much more "young and stupid" than that, but luckily I gave up on fish after that until I was old enough to do the research and haven't regretted anything major since.


----------



## Chrom0zone

The worst for me was a tiny tire-track eel. He was always hiding and slowly eating everything in the tank. He grew fast and was a serious hunter.

He disappeared one day, it wasn't until we moved, did we find him all shriveled up on the other side of the room under the couch.

I don't miss him.


----------



## Tommyu1992

Chrom0zone said:


> The worst for me was a tiny tire-track eel. He was always hiding and slowly eating everything in the tank. He grew fast and was a serious hunter.
> 
> He disappeared one day, it wasn't until we moved, did we find him all shriveled up on the other side of the room under the couch.
> 
> I don't miss him.


:'[

Iridescent sharks. they went back to the store after they hit a foot.
And the bala :[ He jumped out of the 55 G and killed himself at 6'' the day before he was to go to a new home. 
Ahhh I should have done the research....


----------



## chunkypeanutlove

German Blue rams a few months into getting into the aquarium hobby. although the tank was cycled i just didnt have the skill to keep them. very expensive for the few weeks of beauty they added to the tank


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## PzykoSkillz

My Paratheraps Fenestratus. They paired up sometime and took out the 3rd Fenestratus, 3x Vieja Melanurus, and 2x Herichthys sp. Turquoise. They were all from Rapps too....


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## mudboots

I commented about a CAE a while back and must retract my loathing of them. Turns out that the ones I have just wanted some space (obviously they are all different, and now only one is alive since an oops). Once in the 125 (from the 20) they became docile and actually eat algae. While they are many times the size of my tiny ottos, they swim with them as if they're just mama and papa hangin' with the kids. Only mama is left (no, I have not confirmed the sex), but she's is very peaceful and a good tank mate in the larger tank.


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## Aquaticz

mudboots said:


> I commented about a CAE a while back and must retract my loathing of them. Turns out that the ones I have just wanted some space
> <snipped>
> 
> A while bback I did some research and found that you really wasnt a SAE. The best way to tekll is if the black stripe goes all the way through to the end of the taiol it is a SAE. As you probably know there are about 3-4 other species that most get confused on WHICH is probably because of all the common names used by our beloved LFS
> 
> I made a purchase of 3 dozen and split them into two tanks. I lost some from each tank not knowing :noidea: they are jumpers and very good it I might add. Then I stared using CO2 & lost a few there..... The remaining dozen have been doing doing fine the last 5-6 months  They are a great schooling fish when kept in sufficient numbers.
> 
> I have heard some nasty stories about mis identifing this fish
> HTH


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## ryan10517

does is count if i told my friend to buy a clown knife fish? its small now, but i dont think he knows how big they really get  he has it n a 20gallon planted right now haha.


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## mudboots

ryan10517 said:


> does is count if i told my friend to buy a clown knife fish? its small now, but i dont think he knows how big they really get  he has it n a 20gallon planted right now haha.


I love clown knife fish. If your friend lived a little closer I'd gladly swap a breeding pair or two of Apistogramma macmasteri, perfect for a 20 gallon, for the knife, though I am not exactly sure how easily I'd be able to catch them.


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## Erin8D

Probably my betta. I felt so sorry for him at the store, so I bought him to help cycle my pre-existing 6.6 gall future comunity, but the current was to strong, and he needs to be moved out and into a 1 gall planted I just set-up, sometime next week :/ Poor guy.


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## orisuechris

6 neon tetras while cycling... they all died


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## Pookie Bear

I bought three angel fish for my 20 gallon long. They were small when i bought them but they soon got very big. They bullied one another and just kept eating and getting bigger. Eventually i had to get rid of them because they were getting too big for the tank.


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## Gibby

orisuechris said:


> 6 neon tetras while cycling... they all died


Neon tetras are notoriously delicate even in a cycled tank. I'd vote for cardinals every time: hardier an more colour.


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## TonyVideo

Tiger Barbs in a heavily planted 75g tank. A friend gave them to me when I set up my first big tank. I had never kept Tiger Barbs before and thought I would use them to help cycle the tank. Started out with 5. I was limited on what I could buy to live with the barbs. They always nip at other fish. Tried increasing the school to lessen aggression to 12. Still problems. I wanted to get rid of them. Good luck in a heavily planted aquarium as they are too quick. I then gave up and thought I would just out live them and eventually replace them. I now have 30 after 5 years. I can catch about 10 around feeding time but that is all. I will have to just kill the tank to get rid of them all. They breed and breed and breed. I don't even try. The fry hide in my java moss and floating water sprout to survive. I guess it was meant to be to have these guys. I have given a lot of them away over the years and to the LFS for food when I run out, about 8-10 at a time. For years I have tried to breed with little luck and with NO effort I can't stop breeding these guys. Go figure. I can't make myself break my tank down.


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## mudboots

TonyVideo said:


> Tiger Barbs in a heavily planted 75g tank. A friend gave them to me when I set up my first big tank. I had never kept Tiger Barbs before and thought I would use them to help cycle the tank. Started out with 5. I was limited on what I could buy to live with the barbs. They always nip at other fish. Tried increasing the school to lessen aggression to 12. Still problems. I wanted to get rid of them. Good luck in a heavily planted aquarium as they are too quick. I then gave up and thought I would just out live them and eventually replace them. I now have 30 after 5 years. I can catch about 10 around feeding time but that is all. I will have to just kill the tank to get rid of them all. They breed and breed and breed. I don't even try. The fry hide in my java moss and floating water sprout to survive. I guess it was meant to be to have these guys. I have given a lot of them away over the years and to the LFS for food when I run out, about 8-10 at a time. For years I have tried to breed with little luck and with NO effort I can't stop breeding these guys. Go figure. I can't make myself break my tank down.


My brother used to go through cycles like this, and when the little fish bred to much he'd eventually get a carnivorous fish to wipe them out.:hungry:


----------



## TonyVideo

I actually thought about that. I am still 50/50 on breaking it down which would be soon to get rid of them to my local LFS. I want to go with some slow moving fish for a while. I might take my friend up who is leaving out of the country for 60 days and he has 3 large cichlids he is willing to loan me until he gets back as he still wants to keep them. I would take the plants out first. I would imagine they would help me out.  Not exactly the best way to go for the Tiger Barbs. It would however help out my friend. Option 2 which I would remove the plants lower the water to a level where I can catch them for the LFS and fill it back up and put the cichlids in for 60 days. Keep the plants hopefully going in a 20gal tank. I would have to give some back to the LFS also. This would delay my tank re-build but give me time to design what I want to do. 

I have been doing High Tech with CO2/PH Controller and have enjoyed tinkering around with it and the dry fertz. I was getting bored with Tiger Barbs.


----------



## mindnova

*African rope fish*

He was a great fish, but I must have fed him too good he soon out grew my tank. I traded it to my LFS for some other fish after making sure they knew some background. (Of course they are the experts, I'm just a hobbyist I was informed).

A week later I came into the shop and looked for him. They had moved him into a different tank. I found him in the side dead with a large lump in his body. It turned out to be an apple snail, I had warned them anything smaller than a silver dollar coin was fair game. Well they needed the room in the other tank and the goldfish I told them he would eat were not cheap, and they had been out of them the day after I took him in and didn't order any more.

Oh and the owner was actually pissed at me for losing one of her expensive snails. I kept my temper and went home, never set foot into the store and started driving 100 mile round trips to another fish store. Thank god, she went belly up a few weeks later.


----------



## dawntwister

*Re: African rope fish*



mindnova said:


> He was a great fish, but I must have fed him too good he soon out grew my tank. I traded it to my LFS for some other fish. A week later I came into the shop and looked for him. I found him in the side dead with a large lump in his body. Oh and the owner was actually pissed at me for losing one of her expensive snails. I never set foot into the store and started driving 100 mile round trips to another fish store. She went belly up a few weeks.


Those whom treat people and animals ill usually get paid back in some way or another. Never fails!


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## geeks_15

Tonyvideo,

If you want the tiger barbs gone, you could just crank the CO2 way up. The fish will die or be slow moving and gasping at the surface and should be easy to catch. Then you won't have to take out out the plants.

Brutal, but should be effective.


----------



## TonyVideo

geeks_15 said:


> Tonyvideo,
> 
> If you want the tiger barbs gone, you could just crank the CO2 way up.  The fish will die or be slow moving and gasping at the surface and should be easy to catch. Then you won't have to take out out the plants.
> 
> Brutal, but should be effective.


Decent idea as long as you wouldn't kill all the other fish first. I would monitor VERY carefully and then immediately turn on an air stone once caught.

I did get about 20 out by waiting first thing in the morning while dark and over a few days, then armed with a single LED flashlight and my net just scooped them up as they were not as active like during the day. The remaining have now caught on to this little trick and when they see that little LED light they run like it was during the day. 

I also was able to catch a few by not feeding for a couple of days and once fed they concentrated on the food first and the net second.

I have about 7 to go but actually they have turned into a very peaceful little group at this point. The local LFS liked them as they were very healthy with vibrant red tips and very dark stripes.


----------



## AmberSunrise

I love the way they look but I have killed every guppy I ever bought. I just kept replacing them over and over until I finally gave up. I do well with all other fishes I have tried.


----------



## geeks_15

> Decent idea as long as you wouldn't kill all the other fish first.


From your ealier post I was thinking you only had tiger barbs in the tank. I wouldn't use the CO2 to catch the barbs if you had other fish in the tank. I would only do it if you wanted all fish dead or gone.

Another trick I use for catching fish. Cut tree netting (the kind used to keep bugs off small trees) down to about the size of the tank footprint. Lay the netting over the plants. Entice the fish to come to the top (feeding works). Then catch them with a regular aquarium net. The fish try to seek refuge in the plants as they normally would, but run into the big net and are sitting ducks. I used this method to catch some very smart and very fast cichlids in my heavliy planted and aquascaped 150 gallon. I had been trying to catch them for weeks before. I had even considered electrofishing before the netting worked.


----------



## TonyVideo

Excellent idea on the net over the plants. 

I have since added 7 rainbows to the tank with the 7 tiger barbs along with 3 Cory's and a Bristlenose.

They tiger barbs are peaceful now. I was going to go with more slow moving fish but when my 6 month old grandson was looking at the fish he was fascinated by the movement so I will keep them for now along with the rainbows I have added. My slow moving fish will have to wait when I start up a new tank in another room after the first of the year.  I am going to go the Walstad method on that one since one CO2 EI tank keeps me busy.  I have not done that type and want to try my hand at that type next.


----------



## Jerroldw91

I know it is not a fish, but my worst "invertebrate" purchase was my crawfish that i so named butters. I named it butters because when it finally kicks the bucket I will be eating it with a giant cup of butter. I bought the crawfish on a whim to put into my empty 14 gallon. When I got back to my dorm i forgot that my brother had taken it for his new appartment. My only option was to place Butters (then named Fernando) into my 10 gallon fully planted tank with 3 endlers. Story made short, butters is sitting in an empty 10 gallon with some rocks and a cave made out of pots. He consumed everything in my planted tank (valued around $80 or so with plants and endlers...) sad day.


----------



## rhstranger

+ 1 on SAE's. Oh, sorry, I mean FALSE SAE's. I have 2 of the spastic pigs. Basically eat anything and everything, and terrorize all my livebearers. One good thing: I think they are the ones that are keeping my platy and endler fry count in check.


----------



## GimmeGills

A beautiful Betta Splendens from a LPS that was such a character I had to get another...and another...and this whole dang addiction began! It's all his fault. I should have bought a hamster...


----------



## sampster5000

When I discovered that there were a ton of different pleco's in the world I went out to find all of the cool ones that I could that were affordable. In my 35 gallon I put a gold nugget, adonis, butterfly, sailfin, chocolate zebra, and another small pleco i didnt know the name of. This was all at the same time because I did not know they would stress each other out. All but the butterfly and sailfin died the first week. Over 200 bucks down the drain.


----------



## oaomcg

6 rummynose tetras...


.... with ich


----------



## fishyjoe24

$300.00 dollar snow white x leopard discus breeding pair. that never breed for me, and the female ended up dying.

make sure to get your discus and angelfish from breeders/hobbiest and not pet shops.. I did get the discus from a breeder though..

advice- it's only a breeding pair when you can see fry/babies. if you only see eggs on the slate or breeding cone. then it's only a mated pair in my opinion.. also just because fish will lay eggs in one tank, or have breed in one tank doesn't give you 100% that they will lay eggs/breed in your tank...


----------



## Gordonrichards

I bought 6 angel fish, smokey green/blue zebras, plus three silvers. I must have had them in my tank for 9 months but they never paired off. I sold them on craigslist at a loss. 

Messaged her two months later asking her how they were, since I missed them.

She now has three pairs, they've all laid eggs and one of the three groups has 40+ fry.


----------



## test pilot

A Jack Dempsey. When I first started keeping fish many years ago. It looked cute when it was little.... And then it grew up and soon became my tank's only inhabitant. I think it lived about 5 years as my tank's only inhabitant.


----------



## mfgann

When I first started into the aquarium hobby solo (my parents kept fish for a while), the LFS sold me a 10G, a dwarf Gourami, Bala shark, and rainbow shark. The DG lasted a few days. After it died I researched a little, and found out I needed a bigger tank soon.. stupid LFS. Either they were milking people and lying through their teeth, or they didn't know a thing about fish. I never set foot in that shop again.

Now I'm going through the same process with plants.. and making similar mistakes. Ohhhh.. by high light you mean the 20W florescent in my 30G won't cut it? Oops.


----------



## Duckweed Hunter

I guess my worst fish buy would be 6 fork tail rainbows i had.the LFS said they would be fine but they chased all my fish and killed a school of rumy knows.


----------



## mikslik

3 clown loaches to eat my snails. A couple of months later I decided to buy $80 worth of cherry shrimp @$4 each (didn't know I could buy them on APC back then). After two days, no cherries left. Got rid of the clowns the next week. 

Mike


----------



## mudboots

mikslik said:


> 3 clown loaches to eat my snails. A couple of months later I decided to buy $80 worth of cherry shrimp @$4 each (didn't know I could buy them on APC back then). After two days, no cherries left. Got rid of the clowns the next week.
> 
> Mike


And those loaches probably didn't even thank you for the tenderloin-priced snacks!!!


----------



## StarBlaze

My most regrettable purchase was two red belly pacu for my 55 gal. My husband just _HAD_ to have them... I knew they were gonna be trouble but I humored him. When we purchased them, they were maybe three inches long each... maybe the size of a steel can bottom. Within a year, they both grew bigger than your head and were charging at the glass. I was afraid they were going to shatter my aquarium! Needless to say, we traded them for store credit at a nice aquarium shop nearby. Got my first taste of live planted aquariums there, and my java moss.


----------



## daverock1337

my roommate had a 180 gallon cichlid tank. i found a nice little flowerhorn in my lfs. got him for 5 bucks. we put him in the 180. i came home from work one day, and the flowerhorn is in my planted 29 gallon tank. my roommate brought home some new small cichlids, saw one get bitten in half and one eaten, so he removed my flowerhorn. the flowerhorn proceeded to eat everything in my tank. starting with 8 kuhli loaches, a male crowntail betta, 12 tiger barbs, and then 4 gouramis. the only thing he left alone was an albino bn pleco. i wanted him to have a tankmate, so i got him an oscar. destroyed. then i bought him a 6 inch jack dempsey for a tankmate. the jd was bigger than him. destroyed. i gave up on finding a tankmate for my flowerhorn. he started to become awesome, i could hand feed him, he had a yellow face, pink belly, pearling on his scales, and two rows of of spots. then our power went out for a week in december, coming back on christmas eve. he did not survive.

i regretted him at first, then he became my favorite fish ever. i will have another one some day, when i can get a proper sized tank for one.


----------



## AquaBarren

SAE. Quickly stopped providing any discernible clean up value and just got big and disruptive. Too much biomass wrapped up in 3 unappealing fish (IME). Just try to catch them!


----------



## Novii

This thread actually got me to join the site! Ha!

1) Angelfish: Bought them from the LFS I worked at. They had some kind of bacterial infection that I didn't see until I got them home. Wiped out the tank.

2) Kribensis: I should have known better, they are WAY too pretty for a beginner. xD I had a beautiful pair. I caught them myself from the store. They had paired up at the store and were gorgeous in their full breeding colors. Within the first week, my female had taken over the "cave". Within a month, I had the first brood. "Aw...they're so adorable." Then I had a second brood. And a third. And a forth. And then they maxed out my tank. I ended up selling them on Craigslist and their fry to another LFS. I still have one baby left who was hiding for a good long time.

3) Flying Fox: Marked as "Siamese Algae Eater" in the store. I looked in my Handy-Dandy Fishie Book and on the internet on my phone. Yep. That's what I want. Got him home. Turned into a MONSTER. He grew to be around 8''. HUGE. Then he turned on the kribs. Took out the first batch of young and attacked the female. He actually SUCKED her eye out of the socket and left a huge wound on her side. I caught him the next day and traded him for a couple Madagascar Rainbows.

4) Giant Danio: All the fun and excitement of a little one, only bigger, better and more of a bully. I bought three of these guys. Ended up freezing them out of anger. They killed four lovely rainbows! Not just stressed them out, but picked at them until they died, then tore up the corpses. D< I liked my rainbows more than the danios...which I guess shows after I got more rainbows and got rid of the danios.


----------



## theaznguy808

I had gotten about 20 or so small kenyii cichlids in a 55 gallon aquarium for about a week or so (I was 10 or so). They all looked really marvelous swimming around.


Long story short, I decided to experiment with "nitrate removers" and a bunch of other chemicals from the brand that makes TetraMin.


An hour after experimenting, I came back to find all the cichlids dead on the gravel.

I think that was one of the saddest days in my childhood.


----------



## Sharper

Mine isn't a fish, it is actually the cherry shrimp.

I needed a serious hair algae eater and the guy at the LFS said I needed a lot of cherry shrimp. I told him what fish I had in my tank: 3 small angel fish, tiger barbs, cherry barbs. The guy said the shrimp will be fine. I spent a good amount of money on these guys.

The angel fish were happy to eat them within the hour.


----------



## JazzyP

A pretty, but unidentified, nudibranch. I had very limited space, and, against almost all advice I was given, decided to try a semi-reef (no hard corals) in a 5-gallon tank. My first, and so far, only, marine tank. It was a ton of work getting it stablized, and I was probably as proud of it as I have ever been of anything...until this critter died (as I now know was probably inevitable) and nuked the whole shebang in the process.


----------



## doubleott05

i would have to say 3 turquoise discus. i had a 55 gal long and lots of plants in it. but they were so shy when i entered the room they would tear circles in the tank and i had a jumper that finally jumped and died. they were $45 each. . i finally took the other two back to the fish store and traded them for hatches and cardinals. 

after all they uprooted almost all my plants and destroyed 5 months worth of work and one committed suicide. so i had enough. that was in 2005


----------



## ukigumo11

Celebes Rainbow Fish. Had some beautiful Pseudomugil Furcata but decided to add some Celebes Rainbows which were on sale. Saw that one looked kind of emaciated, but stuck him in my tank since I only had one tank at the time. Slowly one by one, all my rainbow fish took on that same emaciated look and eventually wasted away. I know I should have quarantined the fish (only one tank at the time) or said something to the pet shop owner (not one that likes to complain), but I didn't. In addition to that, the pet shop owner was a jerk. 

Never said anything to the owner about the fish (additionally purchased cardinals with some sort of tumors/growths on them from the same shop), but will not return to the store, not so much because of the loss of the fish, but because the owner is a jerk. Sometimes who you buy your fish from is more important than what you are buying...


----------



## itsjustme1966

Cavan Allen said:


> Bad chocolate gouramies. I should have quarantined them but didn't. They brought something along with them that wiped out almost everything in the tank, including several generations of killies. Worst impulse buy ever!


I would have typed EXACTLY the same!!!!!!

I bought 3 chocolate Gouramis a week before X-mas 2010, within two days my tank was acting strange. Wiped out all but pleco and 1 Managasgar rainbow.
had 3 large clown loaches..1 being about 6-7 yrs old about 7 inches...I cryed netting him out!!!
had 3 red rainbows 5in approx, 3 yrs old. 3 roseline sharks approx 4-5 inches.
sumo loach and number of khuli loaches...
impulse buy and never quarantined the fish..after 30 yr of fish keeping?? DOH! dumb..just dumb..
medicating what I had thought was ick? who knows looked like velvet, bacterial ?? turned out my filter media absorbed the meds. I have never had to medicate a large tank..80 gal.
Tank is back up and running with same fish stock as beofre..thats how much I missed them
Ive learnt my lesson. 40 gal holding tank is back up in the spare room once again.
I wanted a nice tank for Xmas as I was having company. turned out I did a 100% WC and cleaning that day...crazy


----------



## boss302man

Not sure if I really made a bad decision or not, but with my first tank 10 gallon, I bought a rainbow shark, who messes with everyone in any tank even my current 55 gallon, but I like him because his black color is the best i've seen, he's full grown and he is like 6 years old. 

Also when i was new to this (10 gallon), I asked the local pet store for a pleco, well this "pleco" hid in a cave for years until i wanted him in my 12 gallon. I could not get this damn thing out, I took out the cave and this thing barks at me, scared me half to death, I was like WTF is this thing... well for about 5 years of owning him thinking he was a pleco, not even actually seeing him much only for the white spots, I even thought i came out lucky with an expensive pleco, turned out he was a spotted Raphael catfish. 

And after reading this today, I look to my left to see my new 2 blue tetras hoping they dont cause problems.


----------



## ixeeta

When I first moved in with my fiancee I had a 30 gal planted tank with a HUGE school of neon tetras, and lots of ghost and cherry shrimp. He goes to the LFS and comes home with a 'pea' puffer. In a week it had eaten EVERYTHING and even torn bites out of my plants. We checked with the store, turns out we were accidentally sold a Fahaka puffer. 

It was a really cool fish, but it was an eating machine. It ate everything we tried in the tank with it even a (much larger) Oscar my brother gave me. We went through 2 tank upgrades with him and TONS of feeders. I finally drew the line when it was about the size of a football and too agressive to be able to scrape the algae of the glass without it trying to attack your arm! The LFS was actually really excited when we asked about returning him and had a new home lined up in about 10 minutes.
I do miss the way he used to rap his teeth on the glass and puff when we walked into the room with blue Big Al's bags.


----------



## gitusukka

Won a goldfish at a carnival ping pong throw game when I was 12. Now 40 and still dumping money into this hobby... but absolutely no regrets!


----------



## mudboots

A while back Melinda let the girls pick some "pretty fish" at the not-so-local mass chain store. We have a crew of beautiful female bettas, and the fish they brought home to live with them were 3 young Mbuna cichleds (1 red zebra and 2 others I don't know). Three females get along with them great; the others had to be moved because they were getting nipped.


----------



## nap83

fishfry said:


> hatchetfish....they are cool, but even with my tank being covered really well they still found ways out!!


exactly. coolest upper dwellers i couldn't keep.


----------



## anubias6439

Parotocinclus sp. "Peru"
last year i bought 4 of them at $13 each. I had done absolutely no research about them previously. I quikly found out that nobody had had any real success with them. The first one died 2 months later with the last one dieing about 4 months later. They never ate anything that i could see. No luck with algae wafers, fresh veggies or even meaty delights. They rarely moved too. Every time i did a water change, i had to make sure they didnt get above the water line or else they would just sit there and dry out. Beautiful fish, just not suitable for aquariums


----------



## tat

An L200 for $50.
I have it for 10 months now, a great loricariidae. But that was to much money for a single fish.


----------



## DogFish2.0

Year ago I was at a GCCA auction. I was waiting on a bag of 3 albino bristle nose about 2" long. I got talking to the guy next to me. I thought I heard the bag number I wanted and the the word Pleco. I got the bag rather cheap. When the runner brought it to me is was this monster common Pleco about 10" long.

I donated it back to the club. That $12 taught me to pay better attention in an auction.


----------



## capecodgirl

My business partner bought several lovely fish, rams, angels, cories, tetras etc. from our LFS. These fish were all prime looking specimens that were acting frisky/spawny in the store. For our customers we ALWAYS quarantine and My business partner has several simple planted tanks (rock wool pots w/ clean glass bottom) at home were we typically house fish for 2 months before bringing them to a paying customers tank. These fish went into 3 of these tanks. Well, we had had the fish for about 2 weeks when we noticed a worm hanging from the anus of one of the angels. Within a few days ALL of the fish except the cories had these weird worm things hanging out of them. All of the fish were eating fine. We attempted to remove a worm hanging from one of the angels in order to ID it, but it would retract into the fish when ever the fish was stressed. We decided they would never go into a customers tank then, and used the opportunity to try and learn more about these worm things. We Made a general ID of these creatures they were a type of nematode. Long story short, we treated with several different kinds of medications including some medical grade drugs which had to handled with gloves and masks, nearly every kind of over the counter stuff and even puppy wormer, NOTHING WORKED!!! in the end we had to sterilize all of the tanks and mercy kill over $300- worth of fish, interesting to note, the corydoras cats we purchased and housed with these fish never showed any symptoms and when we experimented with moving them to a tank with guppies they did not transfer the worm infestation to them. We had these infected fish for 6 months or more and tried to learn all we could about them. We even tracked the life cycle of the infestation as best we could and found all livebearers, characins, and chiclids were at risk of infection. During the first few weeks of this time we were in contact with the store almost daily, sadly they never admitted to having had the parasite in their store and tried to say it came from our rock-wool planted tanks. Needless to say, we have never been back.


----------



## Tetraholic the 3rd

My most stupidest fish purchase, buying a chinese algae eater and 10 neon tetras. The chinese algae eater would sit in the fish tank resting all day and the only time he would move is when I dropped vegetables or pellets in. The neon tetras on the other happened to carry some ich on one of them. I didn't quarantine them so it pretty much infected my whole tank including my costly clown loaches. Some of my tetras died and one of clown loaches lived......


----------



## Willfull

Not so much a purchase but I added a wild bluegill to my 125g and it wiped out my entire collection from disease.


----------



## jemminnifener

I have two zebra danios together in one tank. One is fat and happy and swims with his fins extended from his body. He looks like an airplane as he cruises around the tank, breaking out of his cruise to chase other fish out of the top layer of the water that's he's claimed as his own. The other one is scrawny and miserable looking, hiding under plants, in holes, in little spaces, constantly swimming spastically around the tank. I thought he was sick but he eats and swims fine. He just looks miserable all the time which makes me unhappy. I don't know if I added another zebra danio if the aggression would diffuse to the point where he wouldn't look as miserable. I don't really want to add more zebra danios to the tank since I've grown to dislike their behavior.


----------



## christian_cowgirlGSR

> I have two zebra danios together in one tank. One is fat and happy and swims with his fins extended from his body. He looks like an airplane as he cruises around the tank, breaking out of his cruise to chase other fish out of the top layer of the water that's he's claimed as his own. The other one is scrawny and miserable looking, hiding under plants, in holes, in little spaces, constantly swimming spastically around the tank. I thought he was sick but he eats and swims fine. He just looks miserable all the time which makes me unhappy. I don't know if I added another zebra danio if the aggression would diffuse to the point where he wouldn't look as miserable. I don't really want to add more zebra danios to the tank since I've grown to dislike their behavior.


I had 2 leopard danios and a zebra danio in my 10 gallon tank 'til one day one of my leopards died. The zebra died not long after that. My best guess is the leopard died from natural causes and the remaining leopard chased the zebra to death. As it turns out, the danios had bred before I lost 2 out of 3 of them and I now have the original leopard danio plus 3 leopard danio fry and 2 zebra danio fry. These fish definitely seem to do best when they're in a group so that one fish doesn't get picked on more than the others.

My most regrettable fish purchase was 2 dalmation mollys I got when I set up my 30 gallon tank shortly after getting married. I had gotten some guppies and some corys for the tank and allowed my husband to pick 2 of whatever fish he wanted, assuming it would work with the other fish in the tank. I stupidly didn't check the gender of the fish he selected and, several months later, ended up with a batch of molly fry, totalling nearly 100 baby fish! I gave all the babies and the daddy away and kept the mother until she died, presumably of old age, several years later. They're not bad fish, they just multiply way too quickly.


----------



## MochaLatte

Right now I am thinking the 2 new baby angels I got is my worst buy. I had them in a quarantine tank and it crashed so I put them in my angel tank. Well that tank has now crashed. Put 2 fish in my main tank to ease load on the angel tank and now I have problems in my main tank. No fish losses yet knock on wood.


----------



## allaboutfish1996

my CAE


----------



## XMX

Does shrimp count? I got a couple BKK shrimps. One arrived with fungus on its head. Both of them didn't even last 2 weeks


----------



## Markw78

arellanon said:


> Yes, SAE's suck! Mine is getting big and lazy; my ottos easily outgraze the guy/gal! All he does is harass my ottos while THEY try to eat algae! Doubt I'll ever buy one again; I'll just stick with a crew of ottos, shrimp, and snails.


I love my SAE's, they do get lazy, but they are a really active and cool schooling fish. I like them a lot regardless of what they eat.


----------



## wlee618

juvi Silver Dollar... when i got it from the store, it as like a dime size. I asked the guy how big can it grow he said "DOLLAR COIN". with my kids' pressure, i got 5 and years later, all 'green plants' are gone and the '5 dollars' became 5 adult palm size DOLLARs.. i had to give it up to someone that has a MUCH bigger tank(120G).


----------



## Nachos

These crawfish I scooped up out of the pond. At night time they were beginning to be much more curious as the community fish were resting. The little devils were put to go use though.


----------



## lovesplants

Thirty + years ago I got my first tank. And boy did
the baby Oscars look just too cute, bought 4 for a 
20 long! Had to get a 50g shortly and wound up giving
the whole thing away after a while. Just got back into the
hobby 2 years ago,lol, so far so good.


----------



## szenic

Orange-eyed blue tiger shrimp... spent waaay too much on them and almost all have died due to my noobness w/ shrimp


----------



## Window7

I regret getting back into this hobby.
It been eating up my $$ left and right.
Spending ton of money on stuff which I didn't need.


----------



## Aquaticz

Like what Window7?
By posting you may help another, that is what these forums are all about


----------



## ZeeZ

The most regrettable fish purchase for me lately would have to be Penguin Tetras. No matter how much I tried, the two or three males were too aggressive and chased off everything. Even the bigger Angelfish and Three Spot Gourami were hiding.


----------



## Chazittaria

Rainbow shark, Nipped my silver dollars to death. This was before I had plants btw


----------



## Josea

I say silver dollars too! Under the impression they only got silver dollar size. I got some for myself and MIL and they destroyed everything in our tanks except 2 huge kissing gouramis she had. So I gave mine to her. Years later I have a beautiful tank with angels and rummy nose tetras yada yada yada. Well I had to take back those silver dollars plus some and they killed all of my fish within 2 months. ACK!!!!! So I put them to sleep! Now I have started all over and will not ever buy those again!


----------



## The Trigger

Chinese algae eater. Didn't eat algae. Grew very large, grew very angry....killed 4 of my fish. almost impossible to catch. End of story. Don't ever buy these


----------



## Aquaticz

Happens to alot of folks. You want an SAE. You can tell the difference from other look a likes ( flying fox, CAE etc) simply. The black line goes all the way through the tail to the very end. None of the look a likes strip goes through to the end - they stop right at the tail. HTH


----------



## XMX

Sick wild Altums. Not only did they die on me, they also killed 3/4 of my fish (including 6 Betta Macs)!


----------



## rhodophyta

The Trigger said:


> Chinese algae eater. Didn't eat algae. Grew very large, grew very angry....killed 4 of my fish. almost impossible to catch. End of story. Don't ever buy these


The original and more accurate common name for these was sucking loach. Changing the name did nothing to change their nature but it greatly increased sales.


----------



## The Trigger

Yeah they are terrible. I only had the CAE once and that was when I didn't know much about the difference between them and the true SAE. Now I have 3 true siamese algae eaters and they clean house when it comes to algae. They will soon outgrow my tank within the next year so I will probably sell them and get some new smaller ones.


----------



## DaTrueDave

Aquaticz said:


> Happens to alot of folks. You want an SAE. You can tell the difference from other look a likes ( flying fox, CAE etc) simply. The black line goes all the way through the tail to the very end. None of the look a likes strip goes through to the end - they stop right at the tail. HTH


Not true. Check this link to see the differences:
http://www.thekrib.com/Fish/Algae-Eaters/


----------



## jgmbosnia1

The American Flag Fish. I had three....two ate one....put two in a hospital tank......one left. When these fish run out of hair algea to eat they go nuts on anything in their personal space. In other words the whole tank. They also love to pull up small plants and exposed roots.


----------



## ianjones

being highly experimental, ive had plenty. i had an mbuna tank that i threw a pair of convict cichlids in. when the convicts began mating, they locked lips and wrestled each other around the tank very violently, uprooting the fake plants, knocking some rocks over, and even breaking the filter and heater. i didnt really regret it but i didnt know it was going to get that bad either. even the pack of mbunas were scared lol.

in my community tanks i usually keep a male betta with a few females. i bought an african butterfly fish for the first time (still one of my favs) and the male betta harrassed him constantly. then when the african butterfly matured, the betta came up to pester him and the butterfly fish bit his head off...literally. didnt regret that much either.

hatchetfish have been some of the most finicky fish i have kept, and werent ever suited for my community tanks.

i regretted buying every plant i ever put in a cichlid tank.

the worst purchase by far tho was the figure 8 freshwater puffer. he was an impulse buy and i threw a pair of them in a 29gal with two adult green severums and 3 adult firemouth cichlids. i thought that if the severums ever pestered the puffers, the worst that would happen was that id get to see them puff up. i never got to see that. they were the most aggressive fish ive ever owned. they would wobble up to the full grown severums and just clamp down on their fins with their little beaks. they would even bite the tubing on my powerhead, and when they got bored of that, theyd bite the powerhead itself. they bit the gravel vacuum and my hand when i would clean the tank. after a few weeks, every fish in the tank had missing pieces of fins and the aggression/curiosity was only getting more rapid.


----------



## cichlid85

It was a long time ago, maybe 10 years, but I still remember. I got a small oscar fish not realizing how large they get. I had a 20 gallon tank! Petco was nice enough to take him in. He was a cool fish. Always STARVING. He would get very excited to see me as fish learn their people are the ones who bring them food, lol. 
Anyway, I had no idea at that time how large they get, but I learned an important lesson.


----------



## nanishi

2 male bettas before i learned you can't put them in the same tank, in my defense i was only 13!


----------



## HybridHerp

Fully grown Rose Queen in a 75 with other cichlids

bad...idea

also, new guppies to already established guppies=no guppies at all


----------



## muddelicious

CPO, Mexican dwarf crayfish. He is cute as heck but he is a murdering bastard. He chops the heads off my cherry shrimp for fun and doesnt even eat the bodies.


----------



## TarantulaGuy

Feeder fish for a Luciocephalus pulcher. Made EVERYTHING sick.


----------



## bradsd

I bought some Black Convicts and they multiplied so fast I could not control them. Ended up giving about 200 of them to the local pet store, including the mom and dad!


----------



## jcgd

Banjo catfish. I had to dig them out of the substrate every time I broke down a tank or moved. You always found one when it leaped out of a piece of wood AT YOUR FACE!


----------



## Paytertot

That common pleco x.x or the angels, I have a discus tank and I'd like for them to be my main fish but my dad likes angels and won't let me get rid of them :/


----------



## bortass

Buenos Aires tetras. They've decimated my attempt at a planted tank. They seem to even eat java ferns and I thought nothing ate that. Now they have a tank of their own and I just replanted.

Now to figure out what kind of schooling fish to replace them with in my 120.


----------



## Jonnywhoop

Some endler fish that are still alive from a tank purchase. He gave me them all and they havent stop repopulating -__-


----------



## Aleks14

Wow, SUPER helpful thread! It's making me rethink a little about planning out my community. I thought the hatchetfish sounded pretty neat, but it sounds like those are too difficult to keep inside the tank! I also wanted to have red cherry shrimp and angels, but it sounds as if the shrimp will get picked off...if I have to choose between the two, I think I'd rather have the shrimp. Thanks for all the helpful info!


----------



## christoba

Convict cichlids. Any tank they touch becomes lame.


----------



## amphirion

Rhinogobius zhoui. Beautiful, expensive to boot, diggers that destroyed my hardscape layout, and ate 2 of my chili rasboras upon their introduction...


----------



## yellowcrx1

congo tetras


----------



## dtang21

A single red eye tetra. It came in a bag with a huge number of fish. Ended up biting all of the tank mates. Some fish had their entire rear tail fins bit off. I took that little bastard to my lfs and threw him a cycle tank. Hope it died


----------



## coatfetish

yellowcrx1 said:


> congo tetras


I've been thinking about getting congos - why do you regret them? I've heard they can be semi aggressive - is that why?

My biggest regret = Blue Tetras. Small fish, massive attitude problems. They nip and charge everything, including 3" Buenos Aires Tetras. They'll dash across a 6' tank just to pick a fight.


----------



## Capt. Colton

Microrasbora's in a 100g tank...never saw them...ever.


----------



## Tanman19az

Peacock eel...as it got bigger, it started to eat my fish one by one


----------



## ObiQuiet

Tanman19az said:


> Peacock eel...as it got bigger, it started to eat my fish one by one


Or, as it ate your fish one by one, it got bigger. 

Thanks for the warning!


----------



## SpMelawi

My Sumatra Barb,they eat my corydoras...


----------



## rowdaddy

My most regrettable experience would have to be when my...*Deep breath*.....ex-boss' girlfirend's mother's ex-husband left behind an oscar. She liked the fish, but didn't want to care for it. I was the only person they knew that was in the hobby. He's in a 40B.(I know too small.) But it's all.i had available. I want to find him a better home. No one wants him.

I am Rowdaddy. 
SC Aquaria

75 Community
20H Community
20L Convict "Bedroom" 
20L Growout
10gal RCS
1.5gal in progress
55 gal Paludarium/Vivarium coming soon


----------



## Shrimplett

1. My male German blue ram. He spawned with my female and acts like a stinken green terror to her now and will not let her anywhere near the bottom of the tank. She is very pale and has her fins clapped becase he is stressing her out so much. I might just trade him for 2 more females and a different male so pairing can happen naturally.

2. My Midas blenny (a marine fish) has internal parisites and is wasting away in QT. I am treating him but have no idea if he will recover or not.


----------



## 1.0reef

1. SAE, I swear that thing just hides and does nothing! I already gave away one but I'm stuck with the other 
2. Serpae Tetras, far too aggressive for my tank.
3. Cinnamon clownfish (Marine) very aggressive and large, however it had a great personality and was very pretty...


----------



## kahort

my biggest regret is not doing the research first. i now have a tank with 2 Pink Kissing Gourami, 3 'Mixed Fruit" Tetras (which are basically White or Black Skirt Tetra) 1 Glo-Tetra (again basically a White or Black Skirt) and a Dwarf Gourami. the dwarf hides ina corner, the tetra chase everyone around, and the kissy ones fight each other and try to fight the tetra. so far no one has died or been injured or had anything serious happen, but my tank is a 5 gallon so im sure it will happen eventually. but its full of color....


----------



## ibisae

These two cichlids I got from a LFS, they were about an inch long each. I sort of knew what I was getting into, but at the same time did not... The blue cichlid (not sure what it was, maybe Electric blue and electric yellow) destroyed the entire tank, uprooted anything AND everything. The yellow one took gravel til the bottom of his cave was barebottom... Ugh.


----------



## Sicamore_Tree

Any cichlid with stripes that's not a Peacock...


----------



## Wphan

mollies hate them with a passion.


----------



## Luminescent

First tank - 5 gallon and I was a young teen. No clue what I was doing. 

I bought 5 Neons and somehow they survived the new tank set up with the little plastic box filter in the corner- anyone remember those? Three weeks later a kid at my lfs let me buy this CUTE little Pimelodus Pictus cat (knowing I had neons). And very pretty little piece of bleached coral. 

Of course the Pictus ate the Neons in no time and then died from what I am sure was a ph/dh explosion from the coral. 

So then I figured out that some of the 'fish guys' at the lfs had no clue what they were doing (or didn't care) and I spent some library time before buying any more fish. I felt horrible. Heck I still feel horrible.


----------



## Michael

I did the exact same thing with P. pictus and very pricy cardinal tetras back in the 70s!


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## Luminescent

kahort said:


> my biggest regret is not doing the research first. I now have a tank with 2 pink kissing gourami, 3 'mixed fruit" tetras (which are basically white or black skirt tetra) 1 glo-tetra (again basically a white or black skirt) and a dwarf gourami. The dwarf hides ina corner, the tetra chase everyone around, and the kissy ones fight each other and try to fight the tetra. So far no one has died or been injured or had anything serious happen, but my tank is a 5 gallon so im sure it will happen eventually. But its full of color....


LMAO! That is amazing!


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## Luminescent

Michael said:


> I did the exact same thing with P. pictus and very pricy cardinal tetras back in the 70s!


This was in the early 70's.. we could have cried on each others shoulders.

You really missed out on not adding a lovely large chunk of coral though.


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## j03yyung

mollies - they reproduce way too fast!


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## Luminescent

TWood said:


> A bunch of juvenile Congo Tetras. They grew up to be mostly females with no coloration and bad tempers. Garbage disposal.
> 
> TW


Oh no..garbage disposal really? You could have just gotten a male. I love watching him with his three ladies. He has such a great dance! And they are all gentle.

Your ladies were just irate because they weren't getting any love.

ps. I have read just about every page on this thread and gotten a laugh on just about every one of them. Recommending it to all new fish hobbyists that I meet.


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## Luminescent

kahort said:


> my biggest regret is not doing the research first. i now have a tank with 2 Pink Kissing Gourami, 3 'Mixed Fruit" Tetras (which are basically White or Black Skirt Tetra) 1 Glo-Tetra (again basically a White or Black Skirt) and a Dwarf Gourami. the dwarf hides ina corner, the tetra chase everyone around, and the kissy ones fight each other and try to fight the tetra. so far no one has died or been injured or had anything serious happen, but my tank is a 5 gallon so im sure it will happen eventually. but its full of color....


THIS one in particular. By the time I got to "my tank is a 5 gallon so im sure it will happen" I was on the floor:yield:. Someone needs to turn this thread into a book.


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## Charrr89

My biggest regret was my green scat... Adorable when I first got him... Beautiful as he grew... Moved to town and he was already the size of a large fine dining plate... Gave him to family n I never seen him again  

Oh and my beta, he's very selfish and spoiled. I wanted to move him to one of my planted tank an he scared da living $h!t out of my other fish.


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## Charrr89

ibisae said:


> These two cichlids I got from a LFS, they were about an inch long each. I sort of knew what I was getting into, but at the same time did not... The blue cichlid (not sure what it was, maybe Electric blue and electric yellow) destroyed the entire tank, uprooted anything AND everything. The yellow one took gravel til the bottom of his cave was barebottom... Ugh.


Hahaha. That's what my convicts did! Multiplied too fast too..


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## sethanie

I regret the piranha purchased in high school as a novelty. it wore off fast with such a big tank holding only one fish. 

I also regret every fish purchased prior to knowledge regarding schooling preference, compatibility, and basic tank maintenance.

Despite knowing so much more (but I realize I'm still mostly a novice yet) I purchased some guppies who i remembered as eating all their young when I had them in high school. I ended up donating 6 guppies and over 50 young of various sizes back to the LFS. No one ever ate ONE and I don't have enough room to be a guppy rancher!


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## sonvar

I would say platties. I had some and they out bred my tank so I gave a ton away. I went out of country for a couple years and returned. I got 4 back from the person I gave them too because her tank was overpopulated. Now my tank again is chalked full of platties.
A previous post mentioned a chinese algae eater as a poor choice. I had a chinese algae eater left over when my parents tended my tank when I was out of country. He seems to be the dominate fish in the tank. The only one with his own territory, (a fake rock structure arch he uses for his home.) even though he is the alpha fish he doesnt cause too much trouble. Kind of interesting to watch him evict all the other fish and shrimp out of his hole. Only problem is it was a boring yellow colored type.


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## TropTrea

I picked up 6 small 1 1/2" flowerhorns when they were first available. Beautiful and colorful fish which I planned to keep in a 75 gallon tank when they got bigger. Well bigger came only 3 months later and a month after I moved them to the 75 gallon I had at least a thousand Flowerhorns. They did a good job protecting there young even with 6 of them in the same tank. It would be half bad but out of all the juvenals none displayed the beautiful colors the adults did.


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## niko

Hm, it looks like soon we will have a complaint about every single fish under the sun. Some of the species that I read about here have behaved completely normal in my tanks even when crowded (I ran an import fish business). So I have the feeling that at least some of the problems are due to the environment the fish are kept in.


Sent from my RM-893_nam_att_206 using Tapatalk


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## captmicha

I bought some rainbow fish. They must have been carrying some virus because despite any medications and care, they died off. But not before I spread it via stupidly sharing some tank equipment from my QT tank with some other tanks, and thus killing off a lot of my other fish as well. Lesson learned. Now anything used in, on or even around my QT tank are labeled with a big "QT ONLY" tag to keep me vigilant about fudging it up.

I'm pretty good about researching care of livestock before I get it. Which can be hard when you see something you just need to have at the LFS and can't get a signal and can't rely on staff for correct information. But I haven't ended up with anything outgrowing my tanks.

Oh, some killifish I got. One male was SUPER aggressive and led to another male starving. The only reason the females didn't starve too is because I had them in another tank to condition. I've never read anything about males being so aggressive and wasn't prepared for that.


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## jamescfuller

Not so much a purchase as a mistake. I had a large syndontis catfish for many years. He finally died. Synodontis become rigid after death. I flushed him down the toilet and he got stuck in the bend. After hours of trying I finally had to call a plumber to dislodge the carcass. Cost $75.00. That was eight years ago and my wife still brings up my $75.00 catfish once in a while.


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## brolly33

2 Silver dollars that I bought 11 years ago as part of a community tank. I am into growing plants now and they are like vegetarian piranha! I might as well have put an aquatic lawn mower into my tank.

On the plus side, they are 5" diameter and almost an inch thick and very, very healthy, haven eaten hundereds of dollars of plants over the years while I was looking for varieties that either grow faster than they can eat (Mellon Swords have been keeping up for about 4 months now) or that they don't like - Riccia, duckweed, Java Fern and Hornwort have been pretty unpopular with them.

I would sell/trade them but my wife likes them too much.


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## Pinaki_Pal

Well i can come up with a long list of purchase for which i regret till date.

No 1 . Buying 3 dozens cardinal at v cheap rate ( if i convert rate in $ then it will be 2 -3 fishes per Dollar) .It was impulse buy, fishes look good....But, I had a break out of Columnaris once i released those fishes in main tank. I lost 12 of them , but was able to save the lot after dosing antibiotic .


No 2 . Red eye Tetra : they look adorable, i use this fishes for cycling as they r pretty tough. But, they r nippers as well. I had to give away my lot as they were not compatible with neon or cardinals. 


No 3 : Brought 2 royal blue diamond discus for my planted 4 feeter. My friends told me discus don't do well in planted unless u r having a huge set up.... Still i brought them as i thought my set up will b good enough for them. But, , all of a sudden they went in hunger strike and strive to death.From that moment onwards i never ever keep discus or try to keep them in my planted set up.


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## SBS

I had some fun reading this thread.  Ha, ha.

I regret starting in the first place in another century many many moons ago when I begged my mother to give me some of the uncooked fish dinner still wiggling in a bucket, which I promptly placed in a fish tank I used for hamsters before. It was a baby carp who survived a few months until I fed him lots of bread


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## brian c

i would say a dwarf gourami and a blue gourami at the same time i had to put them in a 1.5 gallon tank cuz i didn't know a lot back then they lived together for a few days til the female blue killed the dwarf and a month later shes in my 20 gallon which she still is until i get my 30 gallon up before school starts and a Chinese algae eater which killed most of my fish and had to be taken care of by that i mean put in a pond which is now over a foot long


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## cavamaroz28

2 red belly piranah


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## wrenn420

I bought some extra live rock for my 250 gallon reef tank that came with a hitchhiker. 3 months later I lost all my Tridacna and crocea clams. Then I lost my anemone, and then fish started going missing. One night I saw the perpetrator in action, a large stone crab. I tried for 3 weeks to catch the culprit but they are smarter than they look. One day when I was doing some rearranging I accidentally crushed his mantle with a piece of live rock. He was immediately attacked and eaten by the rest of the tank inhabitants in a feeding frenzy. Oh sweet karma.


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## HDBenson

I'm cringing at a lot of these stories only because I made some of these same mistakes and at others because of what I now know lol. But biggest regret.. purchasing a 3" Black Ghost Knife as my third fish EVER. Tankmates.. 7 tiger barbs.. 1 redtail shark.. I woke up one day to check on my aquatic puppy and his tail was gone - he was delicately placed out across some fake plants(thanks guys). I did manage somehow to keep him alive in a 26g bowfront with these tankmates for almost six months and double his size to 6". I think it was the soft tapwater with a -10GH(softest tapwater I've ever experienced lol)value. After this incident I actually researched BGKs(and everyother fish hereafter) and literally smacked my forehead. I still have no clue how I managed to keep him alive so long in this environment. Lessons lived and learned for us all... hopefully.


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## Jadelin

1.5 inch comet goldfish.

I even planned to "do things right" and get him a "real tank" (10 gallon), and put in some real plants and everything. Aah, the sorry state where you don't know enough to know how much you don't know.
5 years later, I would really like to get rid of him so I can actually have the tank I want (no room/time for multiple large tanks, not to mention my husband wouldn't take too fondly to the idea). Granted, I probably wouldn't be into planted tanks at all if I hadn't got that goldfish, but that's the irony, I guess.
And I can't get rid of him because he is our "wedding fish" (that's another story). I keep telling myself I can have what I want after he dies. However, knowing my luck with pets (which all seem to outlive their natural life expectancy), he'll live to be 50 years old!
I guess the upside is that I have lots and lots of time to do research this time aroud!


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## TropTrea

When the Flower Horn Cichlids first came out at super premium prices I was able to get 30 of them at about 2" size from a beautiful pair reasonably at the time. Note some adults were selling in the 3 and 4 digits at the time. About 3 months later I had several hundred of theses and before long I had three of my 75 gallon planted tanks converted to Flower Horns. About one year later the price on Flower Horns dropped under 1/10th of what they were before. I now had three 75 gallon tanks each with a pair of Flower Horns and they all needed more room. 

Note Flower Horns will change any planted tank into a desert setting once they breeding size.


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## TropTrea

Pinaki_Pal said:


> No 3 : Brought 2 royal blue diamond discus for my planted 4 feeter. My friends told me discus don't do well in planted unless u r having a huge set up.... Still i brought them as i thought my set up will b good enough for them. But, , all of a sudden they went in hunger strike and strive to death.From that moment onwards i never ever keep discus or try to keep them in my planted set up.


I had always kept my Discus in planted tanks. The fact that the Tank is planted has noting to do with them going on a starvation diet. They are fussy on water quality though and love soft slightly Acidic Water with low Nitrogen compound levels. This is not ideal for all plants there is a still a big plant selection you can use with Discus.


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## tug

One person mentioned how regrettable the Chinese Algae Eater was and it made me think to right this note - I was always impressed with them. Over the years it never ceases to delight me when someone asks, if they jump out of a tank.artyman:


turtlehead said:


> altum angel, with no tank.. let my friend "borrow" it for his 80g and died..


I moved to a house across town, a two week process just to move the fish and still I screwed up -
lost both parents along with their juvenile angel baby. Regrettable purchase? I regret that move across town.

I'm going to need some time to think about most regrettable fish purchase. They're so many and I give them away to my so called friends who won't give them back.


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## illustrator

What I regret most is not buying one more aquarium ... well time and space _are_ limiting ...


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## g321

Bleeding Heart Tetras. I bought them in the afternoon and by the evening was horrified that they were actively hunting my RCS. Luckily the tank was densely planted so the shrimp retreated to safer areas of the tank. The following day I netted all the Bleeding Heart Tetras out and back they went to the LFS.


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## BlackDiamondShrimp

Goldfish, eventually they get big and I have to give them away.


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## AEWHistory

I have two regrets a: one I purchased and the other I was given. Both were when I was in my pre/early teens and ignorant of fish keeping still. (Not that I'm some great font of wisdom now....)

Angelfish- I bought and Angel for my first community tank when I was maybe 11-12. At the time I had an apple snail I simply loved named "chugger". One day I came home to find bits of Chugger floating around the aquarium and my Angel nipping at the remains. I have to admit I was not grieving when the Angel passed on. I should have seen it coming too because the Angel nipped at him a couple times before the "murder", but I didnt move quickly enough.

Silver Dollars- maybe a year or two later I was given a 55g aquarium (person giving me the aquarium was going to jail and wasn't going to be able to take care of his fish). I also got his fish and made the colossally stupid mistake of trying to mix his fish and mine. The problem here was that among his fish he had six Silver Dollars and I had about six Neons. After a couple of days I had five Neons. Then I had four..... Three.... Two.... And then I finally caught the SDs eating my last Neon. As a kid this burst my little bubble and welcomed me to the real world with an adult message: yes, Aaron, big fish eat little fish! D'oh!

Aaron


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## mikslik

clown loaches- out eat everything and grow too big- and they never quite display the orange and black coloration- more like pink and grey.


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## praline3001

I am too new with the planted tank to have made any serious mistakes but I am sure they will be coming...

Worst saltwater mistake .. EVER: a large purple tang 2 weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit.


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## Dan101

Brichardi, they breed like rats and eventually take over the tank.


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## donh1298

Chinese Algae Eater I had many years ago. Came home to find him attached to one of my angels. He went bye-bye after that. Gave him to a friend.


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## smokingfish81

Got an Indo Dat last week, not sure why, but it was very aggressive towards my fish.
Currently it's sitting in my sump with some mollies..
What do I do with it? Bought it off someone on craiglist.
Do stores take fish for credit?


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## Khaoticworld

At this point Itd probably be my two angels. I work at a pet supply store, we had special ordered these two angels for someone who never came to get them, someone else bought them only to being them back because they would eventually get too big. So I ended up buying them because we didn't have a tank set up in the store that could hold them. Just a goldfish tank and a guppy tank. Now I have 3 tanks and will have to get a bigger one sooner rather than later Lol. That's what I get for trying to do the right thing

That being said my angels are awesome. Ones plain silver with zebra stripes and the other is a marble that's translucent.( see all his insides) and the marble looks like its possibly a veiltail.


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## thepoweranga

Most regrettable fish related purchase was probably my 760~ litre tank (sorry I can't remember the gallons) not because I hated it but because within 2 years of buying it I had to move it 3 times and on the 3rd time damaged the base nothing major but it was in a load bearing area. 


I didn't want to risk it so I sold it with hundreds of dollars worth of equipment and lights for 200$

Sent from my F3115 using Tapatalk


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## jabraham

Bad Imported Discus.. riddled with worms. They never made it out of my quarantine tank. Spent a small fortune on them and then on vet bills and meds only to watch them die, one after the other. Heartbreaking when my local bred discus did so well. 

Followed closely by Pacific Blue Eyes.. I was assured that they were happily eating dried and frozen foods; neither of which they would accept.


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## seadreamer90

I’m afraid to stock my Walstead tank with anything after reading this. I’ve had many regrettable purchases, but the one that sticks with me are the dozen rosy barbs I put in a 55. They were the long-finned type and gorgeous. But hyperactive. Up, down, left right, zig, zag, EVERYWHERE ALL DAY AT 90 MILES PER HOUR. That was 25 years ago, and I still remember how anxiety producing they were.


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## Karen in San Jose

Most recent regrettable fish purchase was shrimp in my community tank. They multiplied like maniacs and there were males constantly frantically swimming around at top speed looking for females...not conducive to fish tank meditation. I literally gave a couple hundred of them away over 10 months, started with about 12. Took forever to get rid of them. They were also hard on some of the plants, scratching holes in them. If you could just buy a few all males or all sterile females, they'd be great.


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## mistergreen

Karen in San Jose said:


> Most recent regrettable fish purchase was shrimp in my community tank. They multiplied like maniacs and there were males constantly frantically swimming around at top speed looking for females...not conducive to fish tank meditation. I literally gave a couple hundred of them away over 10 months, started with about 12. Took forever to get rid of them. They were also hard on some of the plants, scratching holes in them. If you could just buy a few all males or all sterile females, they'd be great.


What shrimp sp. Is this? They’re food for a right size fish. I’m breeding cherry shrimps as feeder Now.


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## spaquarista

seadreamer90 said:


> I’m afraid to stock my Walstead tank with anything after reading this. I’ve had many regrettable purchases, but the one that sticks with me are the dozen rosy barbs I put in a 55. They were the long-finned type and gorgeous. But hyperactive. Up, down, left right, zig, zag, EVERYWHERE ALL DAY AT 90 MILES PER HOUR. That was 25 years ago, and I still remember how anxiety producing they were.


This was funny to me, I have 5 rosy barbs in a 30 gallon walstad tank. They are active but mine do relax every so often, especially because in the afternoon for a few hours my lights go off (siesta lighting schedule), they end up taking a bit of a snooze as well.


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## AlienAquaneer

My Common Pleco, Thor. He's an amazing beast of a fish however, I've had to upgrade my tank twice since I've gotten him. He's over 12" long now and I again am faced with a new dilemma, upgrade or re-home. I know he's probably about fully grown however he resides in a 60g and we are really wanting to put more plants in... He manages to be the Bull in the China Shop per say 🤣 We truly love the big guy but, yeah... R E G R E T


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## jskoski

Silver Dollars. They completely wiped out all my plants, lol


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## rafael.nicolaidis

Jenynsia multidentata. I hoped to keep them in a community tank with my Phalloceros and discovered they can be aggressive towards smaller livebearers.


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## Flowerflo

Two chinese algae eaters
I trusted the petstore employe, i didnt do any ohter research. 
One died pretty quick thankfully, the ohter one died after a year.
I was quite lucky i had no loses in my fish.


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