What is your most regrettable fish purchase?

263189 Views 489 Replies 371 Participants Last post by Flowerflo, 9 mo ago

JanS

Discussion Starter · Mar 9, 2005

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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Pinaki_Pal

· #461 · May 4, 2014

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.

SBS

· #462 · May 9, 2014

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

· #463 · Jul 5, 2014

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

cavamaroz28

· #464 · Aug 29, 2014

2 red belly piranah

wrenn420

· #465 · Aug 29, 2014

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

· #466 · Dec 19, 2014

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.

Jadelin

· #467 · Dec 20, 2014

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

· #468 · Dec 20, 2014

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.

TropTrea

· #469 · Dec 20, 2014

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.

tug

· #470 · Dec 20, 2014

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.

illustrator

· #471 · Dec 25, 2014

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

g321

· #472 · Jan 3, 2015

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

· #473 · Jan 11, 2015

Goldfish, eventually they get big and I have to give them away.

AEWHistory

· #474 · Jan 20, 2015

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

· #475 · Jan 25, 2015

clown loaches- out eat everything and grow too big- and they never quite display the orange and black coloration- more like pink and grey.

praline3001

· #476 · Jan 29, 2015

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.

Dan101

· #477 · Feb 18, 2015

Brichardi, they breed like rats and eventually take over the tank.

donh1298

· #478 · Mar 28, 2015

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.

smokingfish81

· #479 · Mar 30, 2015

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?

Khaoticworld

· #480 · Apr 18, 2017 (Edited)

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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