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 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

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