bad fish, or bad fit... the danger of the unknown fish...

[Magnum Man]

I've been pretty lucky with buying my unknown fish... but in with keeping transparent, not everything has gone well... my barb tank has not been mentioned, as it was a failure, and as of yesterday... I'm starting over... the problem was the Torpedo barb... The Dawkinsia all disappeared, I never found a trace... it left the small fish alone, but then turned it's sights on the adult Tin Foils... I witnessed it trying to eat the eyes out of one, and it killed it the other day... it had grown to 3 times the size , only half again as long, but tripled in girth... so something had to change... I caught it out yesterday and transferred it to my bichir tank, hopefully it doesn't end up as just my torpedo tank, but it was either there, or euthanize it...

so I'm starting over on the barb tank, the Tin Foils, while large, didn't pick on even the smallest Hillstream, when they were in that tank, there are now 2, plus a few long fin Rosy barbs, 5-6 spot tail algae eaters, all my Cory's that were in there, and my long fin Green Dragon Pleco... with the torpedo gone, I'd like to go back to the Dawkinsia's again... I still like my unusual fish... but sometimes you get more than you bargained for... and while no one likes to air their failures, it's better you know, that one doesn't belong in with other barbs...

 

[GaryE]

I still sometimes have access to newly found species, though as often as I did when I lived in the city. I had a sort of system, though not a foolproof one.

If I saw a new fish, the first thing was to get an idea of a Genus. You can usually make an educated guess.

Then, if there was no info on the fish, I would research the Genus, hoping its close relatives were known to aquarists. I got fooled a couple of times early on by thinking if fish looked alike, prediction was possible. I also had missteps with generalizing -"it's a killie/barb/dwarf Cichlid so it will probably...".

You always need a plan B.

In my case, I like to have a tank free in case I discover my new fish hates company. I'm fortunate in that I like small fish. I'm unfortunate in that I like dwarf Cichlids, and behaviour can vary wildly.

My last set of uh oh fish were two Copella type 'splash' tetra species, who proved both beautiful and super intolerant of their own and sometimes other species even in a 75 gallon. It was a lesson learned.

 

[Innesfan]

My last set of uh oh fish were two Copella type 'splash' tetra species, who proved both beautiful and super intolerant of their own and sometimes other species even in a 75 gallon. It was a lesson learned.

Every time I endeavored to branch out from Nannostomus to their cousins in Copella, Copeina and Pyrrhulina, many of them lovely, I ran into the same problem.

 

[Naughts]

I respect your post.
I am confused about the problem in terms of the fish species, and whether your saying it was due to misidentification?
Is the torpedo barb, your problem fish Puntius chalukudiensis? And the others (killed) were Sayadria denisonii?

 

[Magnum Man]

this is the "problem fish" or possibly the problem description...

and it seem to have a problem with my Dawkinsia's, of several varieties